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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

sports baseball

IU suffers biggest loss of season at Minnesota

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Two weeks ago, IU baseball was going into a Sunday game with Ohio State looking to avoid its first series loss of the season.

The Hoosiers would ultimately drop the rubber match.

This Sunday, the Hoosiers will not be looking to win a series, but instead they will be looking to avoid being swept for the first time this year.

After dropping the opener of a road series against Minnesota (31-12, 13-3), IU (31-12, 9-7) suffered its biggest defeat of the season with an 9-1 loss Saturday.

Coming off Friday’s 4-1 loss, the IU offense failed to show up again in Minneapolis. 

The Hoosiers picked up just four hits, struck out nine times and walked three times.

After Minnesota junior pitcher Reggie Meyer pitched into the ninth inning on Friday, freshman pitcher Patrick Fredrickson delivered seven shutout innings on Saturday. 

Minnesota jumped out against IU starter pitcher sophomore Cameron Beauchamp by scoring three runs on four hits in the first inning. The Golden Gophers tacked on another in the third to take a 4-0 lead.

IU had back-to-back innings, in the third and fourth, where the team had a runner in scoring position with less than two outs. The Hoosiers were unable to capitalize on those chances to cut into Minnesota’s lead, and would see the gap get bigger from that point.

IU Coach Chris Lemonis elected to go to the bullpen in the fifth to bring in junior pitcher Pauly Milto.

Milto, who is the team’s usual Saturday starter, has not pitched since a 6-3 win against Northwestern on April 13th. It was a tough start for him as he gave up a two-run home run just two batters into his outing. 

That was followed up with a hit-by-pitch and bunt single, but Milto was able to pitch around the jam to escape with just the two runs given up.

Things did not get better in the sixth as Minnesota scored two runs off of freshman reliever Grant Sloan to stretch the lead to 8-0. A home run in the eighth from junior utility player Cole McDevitt would make it 9-0.

Junior thirdbaseman Luke Miller would knock in a run with his two-out single in the ninth to avoid the team’s first shutout this season.

IU will look to avoid the sweep tomorrow by sending out junior Tim Herrin on the mound. 

Stefan Krajisnik

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