Next stop, Omaha

The IU baseball team’s storybook season is still being written, and the final chapter is on the way.

After decades in obscurity, the Hoosiers are finally Omaha-bound.

IU clinched its first appearance in the College World Series with an 11-6 win over Florida State Sunday at Dick Howser Stadium in Tallahassee, Fla.

IU will play Louisville next weekend in Omaha, Neb. The Hoosiers took two of three games from the Cardinals during the regular season.

It has been a season of “firsts” for the Hoosiers, but this first — a spot on college baseball’s biggest stage — is perhaps the most important. IU swept the mighty Seminoles, a perennial power from the ACC, in two games. Florida State was playing in its sixth straight super regional and 13th overall, but it was the first for IU.

The Hoosiers had made it a point not to stage on-field team celebrations after several monumental wins — the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles, and the Bloomington regional — having repeatedly said those accomplishments were just steps along the way to the ultimate goal.

When Tim O’Conner caught DJ Stewart’s fly ball to left for the final out, they finally enjoyed a well-deserved dogpile.

“I join the entire university community in congratulating the IU baseball team for continuing its historic season with its first-ever trip to the College World Series,” IU President Michael McRobbie said in a press release. “But, as coach Tracy Smith would say, there’s more work to be done starting next weekend in Omaha. I, and IU fans everywhere, will be rooting on the Hoosiers as they swing for a national championship.”

The Hoosiers (48-14) were unfazed by going up against one of college baseball’s Goliaths in its home ballpark. Florida State has been nothing short of dominant since the current super regional format began in 1999.

The Seminoles’ six straight super regional appearances is the longest active streak in the nation. This was the 10th time they were hosting a super regional, the most all-time. They have only missed the super regionals twice in the 15 years the round has existed and have appeared in the College World Series 21 times.

IU is the first Big Ten team to reach the College World Series since Michigan did so in 1984.

The Hoosiers were also not fazed by Florida State pitching, which came into the series with nation’s 10th-best ERA. IU scored 21 runs over the two games.

Perhaps most remarkably, 12 of those runs came off the Seminoles’ dominant starting pitching tandem of Luke Weaver and Scott Sitz (10-2).

Weaver came in to the series with a 1.95 ERA and was tagged for five runs in six innings in IU’s 10-9 win in Game 1 Saturday. The offense picked up where it left off Sunday, knocking Sitz out of the game in the fifth inning.

IU Coach Tracy Smith, the 2013 Big Ten Coach of the Year, inherited a last-place team when he took over in 2006. He labored through a 19-44 Big Ten record and 41-69 overall record his first two seasons, with IU finishing dead last both years.

The Hoosiers have played .571 ball (201-151) since, and 87-64 (.576) in Big Ten play during that span. Two of IU’s three NCAA Tournament appearances have come in the last five years.

In 2010, Smith was offered the head coaching position at Ohio State, a program that at the time had far more resources and a much better history than IU baseball. 

“It is fitting that the baseball team’s season for the ages would coincide with the opening of our superb new facility, Bart Kaufman Field, and we are all immensely proud of the team’s accomplishments this year and the positive attention it has brought to the university,” McRobbie said.

IU jumped out to a 4-0 lead with a four-run first inning, adding a run in the third and two in the fifth. Sitz lasted just 4.1 innings, allowing seven runs (six earned) on six hits with five strikeouts and two walks.  

Ahead 8-5 entering the bottom of the eighth, IU blew the game open with a three-run inning.

Dustin DeMuth hit a one-out double to left that kicked up chalk along the foul line and was brought home three batters later on senior center fielder Justin Cureton’s two-out, two-run triple to right that also scored Chad Clark, who reached on a fielder’s choice.
Will Nolden made it 11-5 IU on an RBI double high off the extended wall in right.

The insurance runs gave freshman left-hander Will Coursen-Carr (5-0) a comfortable margin to work with. He bailed out ineffective starter Aaron Slegers, tossing four innings of one-run ball before allowing a pair of base runners in the ninth and giving way to closer Ryan Halstead with one out.

Halstead’s appearance didn’t come without some drama, though.

He walked Giovanny Alfonzo to load the bases before hitting Casey Smit to force across a run, but he bounced back by striking out Josh Delph on a high fastball and inducing Stewart’s flyout.