Hoosiers prepare to face Gators

Receiving a vote in the USA Today Coaches Poll is a step in the right direction for the IU baseball team (6-2), a step toward a goal they set at the beginning of the season: to enter the national rankings.

Their series against the University of Florida (7-7) in Gainesville will begin at 7 p.m. March 8 and give the Hoosiers an opportunity with which their foes are quite familiar.

The Gators maintained a national ranking for 73 consecutive weeks until Feb. 25.

When Baseball America released their College Top 25, UF fell out for the first time since April 23, 2009. This season, UF has lost four of their seven games by one run.

Two of those four losses required extra innings.

Sophomore starting pitcher Kyle Hart said despite the Gators’ record, they deserve and have the Hoosiers’ utmost respect.

“For them to have that kind of streak, they have some serious coaches that know what they’re doing,” he said. “I think they’re going to have their team prepared. We gotta go down there and treat them like they’re Florida, like they’re No. 1, like they have been in the past. I think they’re going to be ready to go. They’re going to want to beat our butts. We gotta be ready.”

Sophomore outfielder Chris Sujka said he and his teammates are trying to prove they have something special.

“It was definitely a highlight for us,” he said. “I think going down there and doing well in a road game in an environment like that, against a good ball club, I think it could prove a lot of things.”

Good results could prove that the Hoosiers are worthy of a top 25 national ranking, something IU Coach Tracy Smith said his team covets.

“It means people are paying attention,” Smith said after a couple moments’ pause.

“That’s something these guys are striving for, certainly to get the respect on the field. Rankings aren’t everything, but in some ways, it is a way to validate their hard work they’ve put into it.”

UF will enter the series riding a four-game winning streak to return to .500. The Hoosiers enter the series on their own four-game winning streak, albeit without a couple midweek games to help them reach it. IU’s contest against Indiana State, originally scheduled for March 6, was cancelled. Sujka said he preferred a second day of practice.

“We get another day of work,” he said. “We get another tough practice indoors where we can get everything we want to accomplished. It’ll help prepare us for the weekend with another drill day.”

Hart, whom Smith said would start the March 10 contest, said effects of the cancelled game are a wash.

“Florida is a pretty highly-touted program,” he said. “We just gotta go into it with the same mindset that we had at the end of last year and what we have going right now. One of the thing Skip’s always saying is ‘Play at the same level all the time. Play at a high level.’ I think if we keep that, go down there and play our baseball, we’re going to have a good series no matter the outcome and roll into spring break with some momentum.”