Indiana Takes Advantage of Ball State’s Errors to Grab a Weekday Victory

Coming off a series win against Rutgers, the Hoosiers looked to build on their momentum with a mid-week matchup against in-state rival Ball State

Indiana (13-19, 5-10) looked to avoid a third loss to an Indiana school as they faced Ball State. The Hoosiers put lefty Conner Linn on the mound to start, and his outing didn’t go as planned. Ball State lead-off man Brayden Huebner homered to open the game for the Cardinals, and Ball State’s early offense continued as Kenskey Thomas’ single drives in Ryan Muizelaar.

The scoring onslaught continued with two more runs off of singles from both Brett Griffiths and Maalik Perkins. Linn doesn’t make it through the first inning after giving up four runs, and the Hoosiers go to the bullpen early with Ivan Mastalski.

Indiana would not go down easily, though, as they responded with a four-run first inning of their own. Caleb Koskie’s two RBI double sent both Jake Hanley and Hogan Denny home. Landen Fry grounded out to score Caleb Koskie. The final run came at the bat of Will Moore as his RBI single scored Cooper Malamazian. Ball State starting pitcher Jeremy Jones made it just two outs before being pulled, but not before allowing four runs in the first.

The game then halted to a pitch-off as the Hoosiers got 3.1 great innings from Mastalski, followed by two hitless innings from Kaden Jacobi. Ball State had a scoreless outing from Zach Kwasny and then three scoreless innings out of Alex Burden before the Hoosiers struck again.

In the seventh, the Hoosiers took advantage of Ball State’s third baseman Ryan Muizelaar’s throwing error to first as Landen Fry reached first and Jake Hanley touched home. Will Moore then singles and scores Fry with an unearned run. The Hoosiers grab two in the seventh, helped out by Muizelaar’s error.

The Hoosiers close it out with 1.2 scoreless innings out of Michael Sarhatt, who collects the save. It’s the first time the Hoosiers have won back-to-back games since March 21, when they beat Minnesota.

The Hoosiers got out to a bad start on the mound tonight, but showed resiliency with eight straight scoreless innings after the four-run first. The bullpen stepped up in a major way and bolstered Indiana to its third win out of the last four. Indiana will look to continue to build momentum and improve as it faces off against Maryland in a three-game weekend series in College Park, Maryland.