Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Support the IDS in College Media Madness! Donate here March 24 - April 8.
Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

sports

IU travels to rival Purdue for weekend series

Sophomore pitcher Jonathan Stiever leaves the field during Friday’s game against Nebraska at Bart Kaufman Field. IU lost 7-3.

After six straight games at home, IU baseball is headed back out on the road for its next four.

This weekend, the Hoosiers, 15-11-2, will travel to West Lafayette, Indiana, for a weekend series against rival Purdue Boilermakers, 15-13.

IU holds a slight advantage in conference games, with a 3-2-1 record in such contests, while Purdue is 3-3 in Big Ten games against Iowa and Ohio State.

Outside of the conference, one team has given both IU and Purdue issues. Indiana State went into both teams’ home ballparks, defeating the Boilermakers 5-2 on Tuesday and the Hoosiers 7-3 last Wednesday.

Indiana State’s win against IU started a skid for the Hoosiers. Though they tied one, they were not able to win any of their next three games.

IU broke out of its winless slump Tuesday night with an 11th inning walk-off victory against Ball State. Sophomore utility player Matt Lloyd hit a solo home run with two balls, two strikes and two outs against him to send IU fans home happy with a 3-2 win.

Lloyd also pitched in the ballgame when he was called upon in a tie game with one out and the bases loaded in the top of the eighth.

The sophomore stepped in and immediately got out of the jam by forcing a groundout double play on the very first pitch he threw.

IU Coach Chris Lemonis said his team will take momentum from Lloyd’s late-game heroics into the weekend series against Purdue.

“We talked and we’re going to get after it in practice, have a good positive approach and then go play our rivals,” Lemonis said. “I mean if you can’t get up for that, I don’t know what you can get up for.”

Sophomore pitcher Jonathan Stiever will start Friday’s game against the Boilermakers, followed by junior Brian Hobbie on Saturday and sophomore Pauly Milto on Sunday.

“We’ve pitched well,” Lemonis said. “We haven’t been swinging it great, but we’ve been pitching really well lately. We haven’t been great offensively and it’s been tough on us for the last week.”

IU’s lineup has provided a lot of firepower over the course of the season as a whole, as the Hoosiers have hit 29 home runs in 28 games, which only trails Illinois’ Big Ten-leading 30 homers.

Purdue’s attack, on the other hand, is more contact-based and the Boilermakers have only hit 11 home runs this season. This contributes to the fact that IU has scored 15 more runs than Purdue in the same amount of games.

Purdue has allowed 40 more runs to cross the plate than IU this season and the Boilermakers have a team earned run average of 5.18, as opposed to the Hoosiers’ 4.00 ERA.

Even in the absence of freshman shortstop and defensive phenom Jeremy Houston, who was rated the No. 1 defensive shortstop in Illinois during high school and is currently day-to-day with a hamstring injury that has held him out since March 16, IU has committed seven less errors than Purdue this season.

First pitch is set for 6 p.m. Friday.

Get stories like this in your inbox
Subscribe