Hoosiers end spring break on 6-game winning streak

For the first time in the program’s 118-year history, the IU baseball team is ranked in the top 25 by Baseball America.

“It’s one thing to say we want to be in the top 25,” IU Coach Tracy Smith said. “But OK, now we’re there. I think we’ve identified Omaha as a goal now.”

The Hoosiers had a successful spring break, going a combined 7-1 to push their overall record to 13-3 this season while earning a No. 24 ranking from the magazine.

“That was one of the goals we set up at the beginning of the season,” junior infielder Dustin DeMuth said. “But we’re definitely not satisfied with just being in the top 25. We want to be in the national scene the rest of the season.”

The action during spring break started off with a series win against perennial powerhouse University of Florida. Until late February, the Gators had been nationally ranked since April 2009.

The Hoosiers took two of three from Florida, their first win of a three-game series against a nonconference opponent since 2007.

Following his weekend performance in Gainesville, Fla., sophomore catcher Kyle Schwarber won the Big Ten Player of the Week for the first time in his career.

“I don’t want to say we go as (Schwarber) goes, but it certainly helps our offense when he’s hitting,” Smith said. “And the reason I think he’s hitting is he’s got a couple guys swinging the bat real well behind him.”

Against the Gators, Schwarber batted .714 with a homerun and four runs batted in. On the season, the catcher leads the team in batting average, hits, homers, RBIs and total bases.

“Schwarber is just a beast is what it comes down to,” junior pitcher Ryan Halstead said. “In the Florida series, he single-handedly carried us offensively.”

In the five games during their annual spring break trip, the Hoosiers went undefeated, going 5-0 against Army, Fairfield, Navy, Bucknell and Alabama-Birmingham. The cream and crimson outscored their opponents 36-10.

This marks the first time in Smith’s eight seasons at the helm that his team has gone undefeated on the spring break trip. In the last seven spring break trips, IU has gone a combined 26-25.

IU pitchers shut out Fairfield and Navy, making three shutouts for IU this season. Throughout the year, the Hoosiers have a team-earned run average of 2.20, the lowest in the Big Ten.

Of everybody who has pitched more than 10 innings this season, no single player at IU has an ERA more than 2.88.

“This is probably one of the better pitching staffs we’ve had,” Smith said. “I know we’ve had seven or eight guys getting it down, and that’s all you can ask for.”

Halstead leads the team with three saves on the season and has given up only two earned runs in 13.2 innings of work. He said he expected the pitching staff to be this efficient.

“Personally, I did,” Halstead said. “We had a bunch of new guys coming in to boost competition among our experienced guys like (sophomore Aaron) Slegers, (junior) Joey (DeNato) and (sophomore) Kyle Hart.”