IU pounds OSU, advances to championship game

MINNEAPOLIS — Give a good team extra outs, and it will make you pay.

What had been a back-and-forth, deadlocked contest turned into a rout thanks to a crucial fielding miscue by the Buckeyes.

The IU baseball team scored six runs in the bottom of the fifth, all coming after a throwing error by Ohio State starter Brian King, to beat the Buckeyes 11-3 Friday at Target Field.

The win puts the No. 1-seeded Hoosiers in the driver’s seat for a Big Ten Tournament championship as the only undefeated team remaining. Ohio State will face Nebraska in an elimination game, and the winner of that game would have to beat IU twice to win the tournament.

The Hoosiers will play either Ohio State or Nebraska at approximately 8:05 p.m. ET Saturday. A win secures their first conference tournament championship since 2009.

“This is the game that’s kind of the pivotal game where it can send you the long road to the championship or much shorter, so I think we’re very fortunate to get the win,” IU Coach Tracy Smith said. “We’ve certainly been on the other side of that, so we’ll expect, whether it be Ohio State or Nebraska, a good ball game (Saturday).”

IU was down 3-2 entering the bottom of the sixth. Senior center fielder Justin Cureton led off with a single to left, and moved to second after sophomore outfielder Chris Sujka bunted to the mound and King’s throw pulled Buckeyes shortstop Kirby Pellant off the second base bag.

From there, the Hoosiers (42-13) didn’t have to necessarily hit the ball all that hard to keep the line moving.

After a flyout, sophomore first baseman Sam Travis sac fly, infield single by sophomore designated hitter Scott Donley and RBI single by senior shortstop Michael Basil, junior third baseman Dustin DeMuth got down a perfectly placed bunt to the left side, scoring Donley and giving IU a 5-3 lead.

On the next two plays, it became clear it was IU’s inning.

Casey Smith followed with a soft single to right that scored Basil, but got caught rounding to far off first. Smith looked dead to rights in the rundown, but limboed underneath an attempted tag by Pellant and reached second, allowing DeMuth to score.

Chad Clark then hit a nubber past the mound that first baseman Brad Hallberg charged and flipped to a covering King, who tried to barehand the feed but dropped it and slipped to his knees. Meanwhile, Smith hustled around from second and scored, sliding in just ahead of King’s throw.

“Yea it was a wacky inning, but we make our own luck,” Cureton said. “When you put the ball in play, good things happen.”

IU junior starter Joey DeNato (8-2) went seven innings, allowing three earned runs on seven hits with six strikeouts and two walks.

DeNato, who limited Ohio State to two runs over eight innings on May 16, said he changed his approach against the Buckeyes this time around to keep them off-balance.

“The first time I faced them, I was mostly working fastballs away,” he said.  “So this time around I kind of tried to flip it around a little bit, throw more fastballs inside and start off with more offspeed pitches, so that kind of helped me out a little bit.”

The Hoosiers added a run in the sixth when Travis cranked a fastball to left that clanged off the eighth row of the left-field bleachers for his seventh home run, chasing King.

Travis finished 3-for-4 with two runs and four RBI, including the home run and a double.

Travis, last year’s Big Ten Freshman of the Year, had been slumping badly toward the end of the season. After hitting over .300 for most of the year, his average fell to as low as .285.

He is 6-for-11 (.545) with three extra-base hits, four runs and six RBI over his last three games, raising his average to .298.

“If we can get him going again like he’s capable, I think this team can be as good of team as there is the country offensively,” Smith said. “And hopefully tonight’s gonna jumpstart him.”

King (7-6) gave up eight runs (two earned) on 12 hits with three strikeouts and no walks for the Buckeyes (35-22).

Sophomore catcher Kyle Schwarber got IU on the board in the first, cranking his conference-leading 15th home-run of the year to an estimated feet to right.

The Hoosiers might have had more if not for highlight-reel catches against the wall by Tim Wetzel on a drive by Sujka to left and by Joe Ciamacco on a shot to center by Travis.

“Maybe the baseball gods were looking out for us when it kind of evened up and we got some cheepy runs,” Smith said. “But again, we’ll put this one to rest, refocus and not think it’s going to be that easy offensively whomever we play tomorrow.”