The Hoosiers took on in-state rival Purdue in their home opener.

The Indiana Baseball team may have lost a record high ten players to the 2019 MLB Draft, but that isn’t stopping them from making a name for themselves already this season. They have defeated three ranked opponents including No. 11 LSU in the final game of their first series, No. 30 South Alabama, and No. 17 East Carolina. Head Coach Jeff Mercer is in his second season at the helm of IU Baseball after a career first season earning Big Ten Coach of the year and guiding his team to become Big Ten Champions.

 

 

This season, the team is young but that only leaves room for growth. Two MLB Draft picks from last year return in Cole Barr and Elijah Dunham. Before this matchup with in-state rival Purdue, they were 6-3 on the season but now move to 7-3 with the win. Their first home game was scheduled for last week Wednesday against Butler but was cancelled due to weather so this game became their first home game. 

The Boilermakers got on the board first in this game taking a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning.

After Purdue took the early lead, the Hoosiers responded immediately and that first hit would be pretty much all they would allow defensively. They only allowed four hits and two runs, all while putting up a whopping 17 runs. Freshman McCade Brown started on the mound for the Hoosiers but suffered an injury so in came senior Cal Krueger. Krueger pitched two innings before allowing freshman David Platt to step on to the mound for two, followed by freshman, Ty Bothwell and senior, Grant Sloan.

The coaches agreed to a 10-run rule before the game and by the seventh inning, the Hoosiers were leading by 15 which means that was all the game they had to play. The Boilermakers went through seven pitchers in just seven innings while the Hoosiers had a record day. The 15-run win is the largest margin of victory for the Hoosiers in the series since 1961. They had 17-runs on 16 hits both which were a season high. 

A few Hoosiers had record days to go along with their record win. Senior transfer Jordan Fucci had five RBI’s, the most in a single game since Matt Gorski, who was drafted to the Pittsburgh Pirates in the second round, last season. Junior Cole Barr earned a career-best three runs scored and senior Jeremy Houston had a career high three RBI’s.

This big first victory at home set the tone for the weekend against San Diego and their mid-week matchups at Evansville and Cincinnati back at Bart Kaufman.