IU baseball continued its hot offensive streak Tuesday as it traveled to Terre Haute, Indiana, to take on Indiana State University.
Behind sophomore outfielder Elijah Dunham and freshman outfielder Grant Richardson, IU narrowly defeated Indiana State 15-14.
After putting up 51 runs last weekend in a series sweep of Canisius College, IU kept the momentum going, jumping out to an 8-1 lead heading into the bottom of the third inning against Indiana State. Senior catcher Ryan Fineman, last week's Big Ten Player of the Week, hit a two-run home run in the top of the first inning to kick-start the IU offense.
Richardson followed up Fineman’s home run with one of his own in the second inning. He then doubled in the third inning to give him his tenth run batted in over the past six games.
Indiana State bounced back from a sluggish start to score 10 unanswered runs over four innings to take an 11-8 lead. Freshman pitcher Gabe Bierman and sophomore pitcher Connor Manous combined to allow 11 runs over six innings, although just six of those were earned.
However, Dunham would lead an IU comeback. In just his third game of the season, Dunham hit a grand slam to give IU the lead back at 12-11.
A back and forth battle continued from there. A series of timely hits and home runs by both squads left the game knotted at 14 as the game entered into the ninth inning. It was in the ninth inning that sophomore Cole Barr would put IU back in front with a solo home run in the top of the ninth inning, his seventh of the season.
Senior pitcher and infielder Matt Lloyd closed it out in the bottom of the ninth for his second save of the season.
IU’s hot offense continued as it now has scored 66 runs during its five game winning streak. IU will take on Iowa at 6:05 p.m. Friday night to kick off the opening Big Ten weekend.
