BLOOMINGTON — He knew the second the ball started rolling toward the wall where he was going to end up.
Senior shortstop Brian Wilhite had just hit what should have been a bloop single down the right field line, before Grant Peikert missed a diving attempt at a catch to let the ball roll all the way to the corner.
Wilhite never hesitated rounding third and heading home for his first ever inside the park home run in IU’s 4-3 win against Northwestern on Friday night at Bart Kaufman Field.
“At first when I hit it I thought it was getting down,” Wilhite said. “It hung up a little bit longer than I thought it would. At that point I was just hoping I’d get a single. But as soon as it got by him I was thinking home all the way.”
The eighth inning sprint around the bases was the first run the Hoosiers scored in the second game of Friday’s doubleheader. Before that, IU had only managed four hits against a Northwestern pitching staff with a team ERA of 6.22 entering the series.
But after the first inside the park home run Wilhite said he’s even been a part of, the Hoosiers added three more runs off four hits in the final two innings.
“I think it got the monkey off the back for us,” IU Coach Chris Lemonis said. “I think everyone loosened up a bit and I think sometimes if you can get that one scratch it can help get you going, because we couldn’t get a big hit there for a long time.”
As he was approaching second base, he turned to look at third base coach Kyle Cheesebrough.
Like Wilhite, Cheesebrough already knew what was going to happen.
“He was waving me the whole way,” Wilhite said. “I picked him up at second base and just went from there.”
Before the blooper turned into Wilhite’s team high seventh home run this season, the Hoosiers couldn’t seem to string any hits together. Other times, they couldn’t hit at all, at one point going 15 straight batters without reaching base.
But after Wilhite slid head first across home plate, Wilhite said the mentality of the team changed.
“I think that relaxed everyone a little bit,” Wilhite said. “It also got the crowd behind us a little bit because they had been a little dull there, and we can’t blame them at all. I think it loosened everyone up just to see people were hitting balls hard all day and then a little duck snort could end up getting a home run.”
