Hoosiers Baseball Kickoff Big Ten Play Against Washington at Bart Kaufman Field

A baseball player in a white and red uniform with 'Hoosiers' written on it celebrates after hitting a home run, pointing to the sky while running the bases. — Indiana opens up Big Ten Play vs. Washington. Image: Indiana University Athletics

The Indiana Hoosiers (5-7, 0-0) will kick off the Big Ten baseball season with a three-game series at Bart Kaufman Field in Bloomington on Friday evening. The Hoosiers have had an up and down season so far and are coming off a four-game spilt against Western Kentucky. All three games will be aired on BTN+

The Hoosiers were slated to play Northern Kentucky on Tuesday, but were rained out.

Last Time Out

(From IU Game Notes)

IU wrapped up a busy five-game stretch last week with a trio of road wins against Xavier and Western Kentucky (2). Redshirt freshman designated hitter Brayden Ricketts, the Big Ten Freshman of the Week, and sophomore first baseman Jake Hanley did the heavy lifting as IU’s offense continues to heat up. Each player hit at least .500 with 10-or-more base knocks. Ricketts slugged two home runs on Sunday against Western Kentucky to finish off a productive weekend.

Washington at a Glance

Record: 3-9 (0-0)

(From Washington Game Notes)

The Huskies earned wins on Sunday and Monday to take a series split with San Diego State over the weekend
Three of Washington’s starting pitchers threw quality starts against the Aztecs (Jackson Thomas – 2/29; Gunnar Nichols – 3/1; Hayden Lewis – 3/2)
In each of the three quality starts, the starting pitcher struck out at least nine batters. Each strikeout total was a career-high for that pitcher (Thomas 9, Nichols 10, Lewis 9)
Hayden Lewis threw 7.0 innings in his start on Monday, the most of any starting pitcher this season
Braeden Terry leads the team in batting average (.415), slugging (.634), hits (17), triples (2), total bases (26), is second in on base percentage (.457), and RBIs (6)
Terry also leads the team in multi-hit games (5). Four of his multi-hit games have at least three hits
Colton Bower has the most multi-RBI games with three
Freshman Daniel Porras is Washington’s joint-leader in home runs (2) and has the most RBIs on the team with seven
Gunnar Nichols paces the pitching staff with a .191 opposing batting average, 18 strikeouts and three games started
Washington welcomed four new staff members to Montlake ahead of the 2026 season. Kade Kryzsko joins as an assistant coach, Justin Jacobs is the new recruiting coordinator, Scott Junck serves as the director of baseball operations, and Jake Rook is the director of baseball analytics.
The Huskies were picked to finish eighth in the Big Ten conference by D1Baseball