IU Finds Fight in Series Win
By: Sam Beishuizen | Twitter
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Chris Lemonis finally got what he's been looking for from his Indiana baseball team in its 2-1 series win over Western Carolina.
The Hoosiers won a fight.
IU's offense came alive in a 9-1 series-clinching win Saturday afternoon after splitting the first two games of a three-game set with Western Carolina. The Hoosiers opened Friday with a 3-2 win, dropped an early matchup 4-1 Saturday to set up the rubber match that they won by eight runs.
"It was huge for us because we're kind of fighting that a little bit of not being able to bounce back," Lemonis said. "We're starting to build a little bit of toughness."
The Hoosiers and Catamounts exchanged blows throughout the weekend, first in a back-and-forth contest Friday that ended with freshman outfielder
Luke Miller gunning down a would-be tying run at the plate in the ninth inning and then ending with each side splitting relatively comfortable wins in Saturday's double-header.
Up until this weekend, Lemonis' Hoosiers (5-8) still hadn't managed to show the type of fight he said they needed to grind out the two they picked up against the Catamounts (5-10).
In that sense, the series marked progress.
"Last night's game we fell behind, came back, fell behind, came back," Lemonis said. "We're fighting that a little bit in terms of learning how to do it."
Saturday's double-header showed the most extreme ends of being on the high and low ends of the spectrum.
The Hoosier offense struggled to pick up Western Carolina starter Bryan Sammons' pitches over his eight innings of work and couldn't muster enough run support to help senior starter
Evan Bell en route to a 4-1 loss.
During the 40-minute break between games, Lemonis drastically switched up his lineup only to see the offense explode for eight unanswered runs in a comfortable victory.
"We just put them all in a hat and juggled them around and pulled the best ones out," Lemonis joked. "That was pretty much what we were doing...There was no rhyme or reason, just trying to switch it up a little bit."
Indiana's eight runs were more than enough to support senior
Caleb Baragar on the mound.
He left the game after allowing just four hits and zero earned runs in six innings of work after being challenged to spark the Hoosiers after the loss in game two.
"It's huge. It gives us a bunch of momentum to go into the next week," Baragar said. "It's good for us to get rolling right now, especially at home."
Senior shortstop
Brian Wilhite led the Hoosiers at the plate throughout the weekend, going 3-for-8 with five RBI. He also made a handful of plays with the glove, making Barager's job even easier on the mound.
"Coach kind of challenged us after that first loss," Wilhite said. "It's always hard to lose the first game and have to come back out, take the next nine innings and play them seriously. It was a great job by the hitters to come back out and have some good at-bats, get some swings in and bounce back."
Indiana will have a quick turnaround to Evansville Tuesday for a 6 p.m. midweek game before a four-game series at home against Toledo next weekend.
Moving forward, the Hoosiers are hoping to maintain the fight they found against the Catamounts to spark a much-needed stretch of wins.
"We're trying to really stay focused on the weeks and on the days," Lemonis said. "We talked about it before the weekend, winning the series. Right now we haven't put together enough good days to talk about sweeping, so we're just in that world. We're just trying to win some series and we're just trying to get some momentum going forward."
Go Hoosiers!
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