I thought this fit right in with the discussion.
Opportunies Await
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Sometimes in baseball, it's best to have short-term memory.
Indiana head baseball coach
Chris Lemonis' Hoosiers are no exception.
That's why heading into a pivotal three-game series against Maryland on Friday, he doesn't want his team dwelling on a pair of mid-week non-conference losses when there are more important games ahead.
"If you're a baseball player, you've got to be pretty resilient because we come back and play day after day after day," Lemonis said Wednesday. "We've got to keep fighting.
"IU will take its fight to College Park, Md., where the Hoosiers (23-19, 6-10) will meet the No. 20 Maryland Terrapins (32-13, 11-4). Winners of its last five games in a row, Maryland is coming off of a three-game sweep of Purdue in its most-recent conference action.
With only three weeks remaining in the regular season, IU still has some work to do to qualify for May's Big Ten Tournament in Minneapolis. Only the top eight teams in the conference standings will be invited to play in the double-elimination tournament.
The Hoosiers enter the second-to-last weekend of Big Ten regular-season action ninth in the Big Ten standings. They're just .014 percentage points behind No. 8 Minnesota and .025 percentage points behind No. 7 Nebraska.
IU will have three games against Maryland on the road before playing three games back at home, May 14-16, against Ohio State to close out the Big Ten regular season.
There's still plenty of time for IU to make up the fractional difference between them and Minnesota, but senior pitcher
Ryan Halstead said IU knows how important the final six conference games are.
"These next two Big Ten weekends are going to dictate the rest of our season," Halstead said. "We're taking it really serious. Going into Maryland, it's going to be a tough environment. That's a great team out there, so we just gotta stay within ourselves, trust each other, trust the coaches and just play to the best of our abilities."
Lemonis said he's liked what he's seen from his guys the past few games despite not having the results the team has been looking for.
Offensively, he said IU simply needs timelier hitting. Defensively, he'd like to see more consistency from his pitching staff.
Junior infielder
Nick Ramos said IU's been better prepared in recent games to do damage, but the results haven't followed.
IU's loss on Wednesday to Indiana State was its fourth straight and eighth in the last ten games.
"It's baseball," Ramos said. "If it's not going your way, something has to spark it to get out of it. I hope that happens this weekend for us."
This weekend will be as good a time as any to break out of what Ramos described as a "funk" over the last month or so.
With just fractions of a games separating the teams seventh through eleventh in the Big Ten standings, the Hoosiers know all six remaining conference games are crucial.
Ramos and Halstead both said the team's moral is good. The Hoosiers have made efforts to not get caught up in recent losses and keep trust in the proven system the coaches have in place.
IU's wins against the likes of No. 7 Louisville, No. 12 Cal State Fullerton, No. 18 Stanford and No. 26 Notre Dame have shown its capable of beating the nation's best teams. Now it's just a matter of stringing together wins when IU needs them the most.
"We're a veteran group," Halstead said. "We've got guys who have been there before so I think we just gotta rally with each other. I think everyone knows the task that's at hand. No one's taking this weekend lightly. I think we're gonna come in there ready to play."
Go Hoosiers!
http://www.iuhoosiers.com/sports/m-basebl/spec-rel/043015aaa.html
