As IU baseball traveled to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, to begin its season Feb. 19 against Middle Tennessee State, it looked like the series would be a cakewalk.
Junior outfielder Craig Dedelow knocked a single into the outfield, scoring two base runners, and sophomore outfielder Logan Sowers crushed a two-run home run in his first at-bat of the season.
Senior pitcher Kyle Hart pitched five innings of scoreless ball, recorded seven strikeouts and earned his first win. IU went on to win 14-4.
Day two was a different story.
The Hoosiers dropped both games of a double-header Saturday to the Blue Raiders, 3-2 and 5-4. They lost the series two games to one.
“We played very well Friday, and did really good things all weekend,” IU Coach Chris Lemonis said. “We just have to learn how to drive runs home.”
The bats looked to be strong to start the season, as the Hoosiers knocked 16 hits off the Blue Raiders on Friday night and chased MTSU ace Nate Hoffman after three innings and seven earned runs.
Dedelow went 4-for-5 with three runs batted in and his first home run of the season, while Sowers went 3-for-4 with two runs batted in and a home run.
As a team, IU recorded four extra-base hits with two doubles and home runs in game one but left 14 men on base.
That would remain the story for the rest of the weekend.
The Hoosiers left 11 men on base in the first loss to MTSU on Saturday and 11 more in the second loss.
Even after getting off to early leads, the bats lost steam when runners reached scoring position, allowing the Raiders to stay in the game and force extra innings in both games.
When the bases were loaded in the ninth inning of game two, Dedelow, one of the hottest batters on the team, couldn’t bring in a go-ahead score, as he flied out to the center fielder.
“It’s a good thing because we’re getting guys on base, but when you can’t hit them in, it causes a lot of pressure,” Lemonis said. “We just need to get more timely hits.”
Senior Evan Bell pitched 4.1 innings in the first game Saturday and allowed just two runs on four hits, while senior Caleb Baragar took a no-hit bid into the fifth inning of the second game of the double-header. Baragar lost his bid when he surrendered a double and then a triple to MTSU designated hitter Drew Huff, which brought in one of Baragar’s two allowed runs through 5.1 innings.
The bullpen combined for 13 innings pitched, a 1.69 walks plus hits per innings pitched and surrendered a total of eight runs to the Blue Raiders’ hitters. Junior pitcher Thomas Belcher pitched in both games of the double-header. He allowed four hits in 1.2 innings and then surrendered the walk-off run in the second game.
Junior pitcher Luke Kelzer received the loss in the first game of the double-header, while Belcher was credited with the loss in the second.
“It’s just part of being early in the season, seeing who can handle the pressure and who can’t and things along those lines,” Lemonis said.
