Following its sweep of Xavier, IU baseball traveled to Lexington to face No. 8 Kentucky on Tuesday night.
The Hoosiers came into the game having won eight of their last 10 games while the Wildcats entered the contest having lost two of three games against SEC rival, Georgia. However, IU could not keep its momentum up against Kentucky as the Hoosiers fell 5-2.
The Hoosiers had a promising start via a two-out homer by sophomore infielder Matt Lloyd in the first. Lloyd lifted a pitch to left field that hit Kentucky’s “We Are UK” sign, giving IU an early 1-0 lead.
IU’s starter for the evening, junior pitcher Brian Hobbie, struggled early on against the heart of Kentucky’s lineup. After giving up a lead-off hit and quickly getting two outs, Hobbie gave up a pair of RBI singles to fall back behind 2-1.
Hobbie came back out on the mound for the second inning, but was once again put in an uncomfortable situation after giving up a RBI double that hit the wall with two outs. After another run given up in the second, Hobbie was pulled from the game, going just 1.2 innings and allowing four earned runs on six hits.
IU dug into its bullpen early on as junior pitcher B.J. Sabol entered in relief for Hobbie.
The Hoosiers only managed to score one run in the fourth inning due to a solo shot by sophomore Luke Miller.
UK’s starter, Zack Thompson, pitched six innings and only gave up two runs off of two hits. He struck out a career-high 10 hitters and earned the win over Hobbie, who took the loss for IU.
Kentucky had five extra base hits in the contest, which were all doubles. The last run of the game came in the seventh inning on a sacrifice fly.
The Hoosiers bullpen only gave up one run in 7.1 innings in relief of Hobbie, but the offense couldn’t find any rhythm after the first four innings and came up short in the loss.
IU fell to 27-18-2 on the season and will return home on Friday for a Big Ten matchup against Penn State at Bart Kaufman Field.
