Hoosiers dominate Purdue 13-1, lose at home to Louisville

The IU baseball team didn’t really need junior right-hander Tyler Tufts to take care of Purdue by himself in the last of a four-game series Monday. But he did anyway – with plenty of help from his friends.\nAfter taking games two and three of the series in a Sunday doubleheader, the Hoosiers pounded in-state rival Purdue to close it out, winning 13-1 on the back of a Josh Phegley grand slam – the second in two games for IU – and four runs on two hits from senior David Trager. Tufts pitched his third consecutive complete game, beating a top conference foe for the second time in as many weeks after going nine and taking game four from Michigan in April.\nThe Hoosiers staked Tufts to a 2-0 lead in the second inning thanks to Trager’s two-out, two-run single. Purdue answered with one run in the top of the third, and the score stayed static until the fifth, when Phegley’s second grand slam of the year opened the gap.\nAnother two-out hit from Trager scored two more, leaving the score at 8-1 and effectively putting the Boilermakers away. Tufts cruised, splashing 11 hits across the board while striking out four. \nIU coach Tracy Smith said it felt good for him personally and as a team to beat Purdue soundly in the last two games of the series. \n“To me personally, it was kind of gratifying,” Smith said. “There was special emphasis on not just beating them, but beating them soundly.”\nJunior Andrew Means said Wednesday that the Hoosiers will be looking to carry the momentum and confidence from the Purdue series to this weekend against Northwestern.\n“It’s good to get out there and put those types of numbers up against a good team,” Means said. “It just gives our team a little boost for the end of the season.”\nThe midweek wasn’t quite so kind to the Hoosiers, who welcomed the University of Louisville to Sembower Field after losing to the Cardinals 5-4 in Louisville earlier this year. IU battled with their visitors down I-65, but Louisville’s bullpen just proved too much to handle in a 13-6 Cardinal win. \nThe Hoosiers hit three home runs in the contest, highlighted by sophomore right fielder Kipp Schutz’s blast that cleared the scoreboard in left center field. But it wasn’t enough, as Louisville’s bullpen set down 14 in a row late in the game and the Cardinal bats lit up to erase a 6-5 deficit. \nPhegley and sophomore second baseman Tyler Rogers both homered as well in the loss, putting the Hoosiers’ home run total this season at 30. They hit just eight as a team last season. \nJunior left fielder Chris Hervey said losing to Louisville was tough, but he said the team will move on quickly. \n“Our focus is the weekend, Northwestern, Big Ten games,” Hervey said outside the baseball locker room Wednesday morning. “(Losing) is what it is, but we’ll be ready for the weekend.” The weekend also yielded yet another weekly Big Ten Player of the Week honor, this time for center fielder Means. The two-sport standout hit .562 on the weekend, knocking two doubles, a triple and a home run to tie game two in the bottom of the seventh inning, setting the stage for a walk-off win just two batters later. Means credited a change in his swing made last week that allowed him to stay back on the ball. \nThis weekend’s upcoming series against Northwestern will be the first of two pivotal road trips to close out the conference schedule. Northwestern – 11-13 in conference – and Michigan State – 10-13 in conference – lie just ahead of the Hoosiers in the standings, and the rest of the Big Ten looks to be a six-team dog fight for the last two spots in the conference tournament. \nWith just eight conference games left, IU needs all the wins it can muster – starting this weekend at Northwestern – if it hopes to reach sixth or higher in the conference standings and get back to the Big Ten Tournament. To hear it from Hervey, getting back to the postseason for the first time since 2003 is all the Hoosiers are thinking about. \n“That’s what we play for,” Hervey said. “We play for the postseason.” \nSmith agreed, saying his team can’t change anything in their approach just because the season is coming to a close.\n“We’ve just got to continue to play solid baseball,” Smith said. “We control our own destiny.”