Baseball travels to Louisville

After two rough weekends in a row, the IU baseball team heads to Louisville, Ky., where it will take on the Toledo Rockets and Louisville Cardinals.

The No. 17 Hoosiers team (2-5) has lost its last two games, falling to Utah in 15 innings and then No. 2 Oregon State, after beating Washington in the first game of the Big Ten-Pac-12 challenge.

“What bothers me is losing,” IU Head Coach Tracy Smith said. “You hate losing. That’s been a tough part to rationalize in your mind because you look at it at the end of the day, we’re playing pretty decent baseball.”

IU will get its chance to get back on track at 11 a.m. Saturday when they take on Toledo (2-3).

Sophomore left-handed pitcher Will Coursen-Carr, who is 0-2 with a 5.73 ERA, will be on the mound for the Hoosiers against senior right-handed pitcher Cameron Palmer, who is 1-1 with a 5.87 ERA on the year.

Coursen-Carr, who took the loss against Oregon State, has taken the role as the second starter for the Hoosiers and has impressed the coaching staff.

“He has pitched well enough,” Smith said. “His stuff is some of the better stuff we have, and for him to be effective he needs to be in the zone, but, yeah, we are kind of rewarding him for what he’s done.”

Smith said a team goal for the year was to host a regional game, and the way to accomplish that is by winning non-conference games.

“We better not overlook the Rockets,” he said. “Last I looked Toledo is a non-conference opponent, so we don’t overlook anybody. This is a mature group.”

At 2:30 p.m. Saturday IU will take on No. 20 Louisville (6-2), a team the Hoosiers took three of four from last year, including in the College World Series. Senior left-handed pitcher Joey DeNato takes the hill for IU with a 2-0 record and an ERA of .75. He will face sophomore right-hander Kyle Funkhouser, who is 1-0 with a 2.13 ERA.

The Hoosiers are 2-0 this season when DeNato starts, but 0-5 when someone else pitches.

“He is just so competitive,” Smith said. “He controls the running game, he locates his pitches extremely well, and he competes his tail off.”

Both Smith and junior catcher Kyle Schwarber said they think Louisville is one of the program’s biggest rivals.

“(Louisville) is a great measuring stick,” Smith said. “They’re a very quality opponent, not just locally but on a national scene, and they’re going to be comparable if not better than a lot of the opponents we’ll face in the Big Ten.”

A key player who has stepped up this season is redshirt freshman relief pitcher Jake Kelzer. Smith said he hopes he can become a solid option to go to in the middle innings to bridge the gap to the back end of the bullpen and should make an appearance again this weekend.

Originally a two-sport athlete, Kelzer dropped swimming to focus on baseball, saying it was too hard to do two collegiate sports.

“I feel like all the training that I’ve done up to this point has put me in a good spot,” Kelzer said. “Our pitching coach has really put me in a good position and taught me a lot.”

The Hoosier’s offense hasn’t gotten to the point they would like yet, as nobody is batting over .300, but Schwarber said he isn’t worried yet.

“We just really need to stick with our plan,” Schwarber said. “It’s tough, but we’ll push through it, relax and play Indiana baseball. Luckily, it’s the beginning of the year that these things are happening.”

@AndrewVcourt