Baseball wins home opener

In the seventh inning of Wednesday’s home baseball opener, the Hoosiers were able to push across two runs after maintaining a scoreless first six frames. Sophomore shortstop Nick Ramos hit a sacrifice fly to drive in freshman outfielder Craig Dedelow and, two batters later, junior Casey Rodrigue doubled to drive in junior Tim O’Conner, giving IU a 2-0 lead.

It was enough for the victory as the Hoosier bullpen was able to finish off the Musketeers, solidifying a 2-1 win. No. 17 IU improved to 5-5 on the season, while Xavier fell to 5-4.

The win didn’t come without sacrifice, however. IU lost senior closer Ryan Halstead to an injury in the eighth inning. Attempting to field a ball hit to the left side of the mound, Halstead reached down with his bare hand, but twisted his knee and fell to the turf.

“It’d be a terrible loss,” Kyle Hart, junior starting pitcher said. “I hope to God that he’s alright because I can’t imagine not having him in the dugout, and I know everyone else feels the same.”

Halstead screamed out in pain and was attended to by training staff before being helped onto a cart and taken off the field. IU Coach Tracy Smith said you could hear a pin drop in the dugout, and Hart echoed him.

“I walked into (the dugout) and it was like a morgue,” Hart said.

Junior Luke Harrison closed out the game in Halstead’s place. Hart said that Harrison was running down to the bullpen to warm up when Halstead went down but Smith yelled at him to warm up on the field.

“That was unbelievable,” Hart said. “That’s what we got on this team, a bunch of competitors.”     

Hart started on the mound for IU, and went seven innings, giving up no runs on four hits with three strikeouts.

“My curveball was working a lot better than usual,” Hart said. “Usually I’m more fastball changeup — changeup wasn’t there. That was not my best today. Usually I don’t walk people, I don’t know why I’ve been doing that this year, I have some things to work on these next couple days.”

He was matched by Xavier’s starting pitcher Trent Astle who went five scoreless innings and gave up just two hits, striking out two.

In order to play the game, the Hoosiers and the grounds crew staff had to shovel off loads of snow. Smith stressed the importance of this game by talking about Xavier’s high seating in the national Ratings Percentage Index, and that this was an important game to play for numerous reasons.

“This was a game we needed to play,” Smith said. “Not just because you want to play because you’re a competitor, but implications of RPI.”

Smith says he was proud of the way the team got ready for the game, but also voiced his displeasure with the offense.

“Frustrating is an understatement,” Smith said. “It’s tough. The competitive part of you wants to say we’ve got to be so much better than that, but the reality of it is it’s 20-something degrees outside, and tough hitting conditions.”