Saturday was the type of win IU Coach Chris Lemonis wants.
A tough win, where the Hoosiers battled and fought back from an early deficit.
A win where the Hoosiers scored four runs in the eighth inning to seal a 7-2 victory against Long Beach State to even the series at one game apiece.
“We just competed all night and they did too, it went down to the very end,” Lemonis said. “We got one big hit late that blew it open but this was two good teams playing a very good game.”
The big hit was a two run, two out double from sophomore centerfielder Craig Dedelow.
The two RBIs were his third and fourth of the game, the other two coming on a sacrifice fly and a solo home run.
“I wouldn’t want to pitch to him right now,” junior starting pitcher Kyle Hart said. “He’s a great hitter, it seems like he sees every pitch that you throw to him.”
Saturday’s performance also raised Dedelow’s RBI total for the series to six, after driving in two runs Friday night with two doubles.
Dedelow said he’s locked in at the plate, something he credits to being patient.
“I pretty much swung at the first pitch regardless of where it was,” Dedelow said of his approach earlier this season. “That obviously wasn’t helping my team or myself out.”
That’s what Dedelow did on his home run, working the count to one ball and two strikes, before jumping on a pitch up in the zone.
His second inning home run was the biggest hit of the game, Lemonis said, breaking the ice and allowing the Hoosiers to play.
The home run cut the Hoosier deficit in half, after a two-run Long Beach State home run in the top of the first to Brock Lundquist.
Lundquist's blast was the only blemish for Hart, or any Hoosier pitcher Saturday, and Hart doesn’t even see the home run as a blemish.
“That kid put a really good swing on a pitch that I don’t think I have any business giving a home run off of,” Hart said.
After the home run, Hart pitched through the fifth inning, departing after the Hoosiers took the lead and he had thrown 93 pitches.
“At this point I can compete until I can’t compete,” Hart said. “Tonight that was 93 pitches through five innings.”
Hart battled Saturday, he said. There were 10 batters out of the 20 he faced that forced Hart to throw at least five pitches. Five at bats lasted at least seven pitches.
His stuff wasn’t great, he said, apart from his changeup which got better as the game went along. Hart insisted relief pitcher Scott Effross was the star on the mound Saturday night.
Effross relieved Hart and pitched four scoreless innings, striking out five and allowing only one baserunner in the process.
“If we have a chance to win a game we want our best guys out there and he’s one of the best in the country the way he’s pitching right now,” Lemonis said of Effross.
Effross was also at the center of a contentious moment. With two outs in the eighth, Zack Rivera hit a groundball to Effross, who raced to first to tag out a sliding Rivera to end the inning.
After the tag, as Effross was running across the field to the IU dugout, sophomore first baseman Austin Cangelosi and Rivera started shoving one another prompting both benches to clear.
No one was ejected and Lemonis dismissed the incident as college kids being college kids, but Dedelow recognized the altercation makes Sunday’s series finale a little more interesting.
“They’re going to come out looking for a little bit more blood than we thought they were going to be,” he said.
First pitch tomorrow is scheduled for 1:05 p.m. with junior Caleb Baragar scheduled to start for the Hoosiers.
