IU baseball will play its first midweek game this week against the University of Evansville at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Evansville, Indiana.
The team is coming off a 2-1 series loss against the University of San Diego last weekend in Bloomington. Tuesday will be IU’s first game on the road in more than a week. IU’s record is 8-5 for the season and 3-2 on the road.
Head coach Jeff Mercer said the team’s losses last weekend affected them on an emotional level and they needed to move out of that mentality going forward.
“Every team goes through their ebbs and their flows,” Mercer said. “The important thing is to remember that you’re still the good team that you have been for a long period of time, and you don’t have to be the team where for less than 24 hours you weren’t very good. We’re going to have to go put it behind us and go back to work.”
IU has won seven of its last 10 matchups against Evansville and has a 3-1 record in four road games.
Evansville has a 4-11 record this season and is on a three-game losing streak. The team was swept in its series last weekend against the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina.
Evansville is undefeated at home after sweeping Butler University in a three-game series two weekends ago.
Junior infielder Mason Brinkley is Evansville’s strongest offensive player with a batting average of .400 for the season. He went 4-5 from the plate in the team’s second game against Charleston and 3-5 in the third game.
Junior outfielder Elijah Dunham and sophomore outfielder Grant Richardson continue to lead the Hoosiers in batting. Dunham has a batting average of .440 for the season, and Richardson’s average is .400 for the season.
Junior infielder Drew Ashley was IU’s strongest offensive player in the team's series last weekend. He went 3-3 from the plate Sunday and drew five walks over the course of the series.
Ashley said the team needs to keep working to improve after the series loss.
“Every team goes through something like this at some point in the season, and you just hope you can recover from it and learn from it and put the right foot forward,” Ashley said.
IU will also play the University of Cincinnati at 4:05 p.m. Wednesday at Bart Kaufman Field.
