Crushed

Pitching and defense again proved to be the Achilles heel of the IU baseball team as it dropped three of four games to Iowa this weekend.\nWith the losses, the Hoosiers fell to 4-8 in the Big Ten (12-18 overall), and their goal at making the Big Ten Tournament seems in jeopardy at the halfway point of the season.\nOn Friday, IU won in a dramatic ninth inning comeback in a game the team thought would set the tone for the series.\nDown 12-9 in the eighth, the Hoosiers mounted their comeback by plating two runs on two hits. \nSophomore catcher Josh Phegley singled in sophomore second baseman Evan Crawford to knot the game in the ninth, and then junior left fielder Chris Hervey drove in Phegley three batters later to give IU the 13-12 win.\n“It’s funny,” Hervey said after his hit. “Right in the beginning of the inning, I turned to (junior outfielder) Trevor McConnell and said, ‘Hey Trev, I’m going to win it this inning.’ And he said, ‘OK, OK Herv.’”\nAfter the win, Hervey said last year’s team would not have won the game, and this year’s team never thinks it is out of a game.\nIU did fight in the next three games, scoring 26 runs, but allowed a total of 35 runs and two Iowa comebacks as the team dropped its second Big Ten series in a row.\n“The positive is the resiliency offensively and how to come back and getting ourselves in a position to win,” IU coach Tracy Smith said. “But it doesn’t matter if you don’t pitch or play defense. And we have hit a two-week stretch where we haven’t done that.”\nAfter IU used five pitchers in the seven- inning 13-10 loss in the cap of Saturday’s doubleheader, the Hoosiers needed some consistency on the mound Sunday.\nThat consistency came in the form of senior pitcher Doug Fleenor who allowed five runs through seven innings, keeping the contest all square before giving up two more in the eighth, a deficit the Hoosiers did not overcome.\nThough he lost, Smith was pleased with Fleenor’s performance as he completed eight innings while walking only two.\n“Doug, today, did a pretty good job,” Smith said. “He battled. He pitched. He was focused. I didn’t see any hesitation on his part, but we just didn’t make the plays behind him.”\nBehind Fleenor, IU committed five errors.\nThe Hoosiers now find themselves tied in last place in the Big Ten halfway through their season, but Smith remained optimistic, pointing out there is still plenty of time left.\n“We seem to be getting our game in bits and pieces,” he said. “We swing it, but we don’t pitch it, and if we pitch it, then we don’t play defense. But it’s like I told the guys, we have five weeks left in the Big Ten. There is still a lot of baseball.”\nIU returns to action Tuesday as the team travels to Louisville and take on the Cardinals at 6 p.m.