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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

sports baseball

IU gives up lead late, loses fourth straight

Senior designated hitter Brad Hartong slides into third base on Wednesday at Bart Kaufman Field.

IU was one out away from breaking its three-game losing streak. The Hoosiers had their closer, senior Ryan Halstead, on the mound with two outs, a runner on second and a two-run lead.

Halstead threw a curveball low and inside, what he said was as good a pitch as he could throw. What followed wasn’t good.

Indiana State outfielder Landon Curry sent the ball sailing over the wall in right field for his second career home run to tie the game at five.

All middle infielders Nick Ramos and Casey Rodrigue could do was turn to each other, laugh and say “come on.”

An inning later, Indiana State hit a sacrifice fly to win the game in 10 innings 6-5, after the bottom three hitters in IU’s lineup struck out in the bottom of the 10th.

“We’re just not catching any breaks right now,” Ramos said. “We’ve been preparing better than we have been for the last, I don’t know how long it’s been since we’ve been in this little funk.”

Ramos himself played a good game, going 3-for-4 while driving in a run in the first inning with an RBI single.

The junior’s single was part of four runs IU scored in the first inning to take the lead, a lead the Hoosiers would not surrender until Curry’s ninth inning home run.

But after the first inning, when IU forced Indiana State’s starter out of the game without recording an out, the Hoosiers only managed one run off six Sycamore relievers.

Ramos and IU Coach Chris Lemonis said they believed IU’s inability to continue scoring against the Sycamore bullpen was partly responsible for the loss.

“We should have expanded the game there in the third through the sixth innings with their bullpen,” Lemonis said, “But we didn’t, and it came back to get us late.”

IU’s four runs in the first inning came after Indiana State scored three in the top half of the inning.

IU starting pitcher Brian Hobbie lasted just 0.1 innings, surrendering two hits, walking one batter and hitting another.

Three IU relief pitchers helped sustain the lead until the ninth inning collapse.

Senior Luke Harrison came in during the first inning and pitched 3.2 scoreless innings while striking out five.

Junior Scott Effross pitched three scoreless innings before Halstead entered and allowed the final three Sycamore runs in his last two innings of relief.

Lemonis said he felt he stretched his relief pitchers out a little bit, but that he needed to.

He couldn’t risk falling behind any more than IU already was.

“We’ve been falling behind lately and I just didn’t want to risk it,” Lemonis said. “I felt like we needed to hold them right there because we haven’t been good from coming behind lately.”

The extra-innings loss is IU’s fourth straight and eighth in its last 10 games.

No one seems to be able to explain the funk the Hoosiers are going through, except for that’s how baseball can be sometimes.

“I don’t really know how to explain it,” Halstead said. “The ball’s just not falling our way right now. I don’t know whether it’s our approach or what we’re doing individually, but we just have to keep playing.”

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