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(06/17/08 6:16pm)
Andrew Means has never been so happy to go to Montana. \nAfter putting his name on the line on his first Major-League contract Saturday, Means will head to Billings, Mont., to play for the Billings Mustangs, a Cincinnati Reds’ affiliate in the rookie-class Pioneer League. \nBut answering perhaps the question on most fans’ minds, Means, drafted by the Reds in the 11th round – 329th overall, said he might still play football. \nMeans said essentially that the Reds left “a hole” in his contract, which says that he has the option to return to IU in the fall for football. He said his status will be re-evaluated in August, at which time the Reds could pay him more to stick solely with baseball. Ultimately, it will be his decision. \n“There’s gonna be that time where I have to decide whether I want to stick with baseball or come back and play football,” Means said by phone Saturday night. \nMeans came to IU on a football scholarship three years ago, but he admitted that he always had dreams of playing professional baseball as well. After injuries dictated a redshirt his freshman year, he walked on with the IU baseball team, eventually installing himself as the starting center fielder and lead-off hitter, where his hitting and exceptional speed served the Hoosiers well. \n“He runs like a deer,” one scout said of Means during the Michigan series in late April. \nIn his final season as a Hoosier, Means hit .357 and led the Big Ten with 72 runs. He also garnered two Big Ten Player of the Week honors – one after hitting a seventh-inning, game-tying home run in the first of three IU wins over Purdue and another for hitting .563 over the last weekend of the regular season in a four-game sweep of Michigan State. That sweep put the Hoosiers in the Big Ten Tournament for the first time in five years. \n“Just knowing that I was part of getting Indiana baseball turned around,” Means said of his career in Bloomington. “I was glad to be a part of that.”\nMeans was not the only Hoosier to end his college career over the weekend. Right-hander Tyler Tufts, also a junior, signed a contract with the Texas Rangers, who drafted Tufts in the 32nd round of the First-Year Player Draft. Tufts lodged a 6-5 record and a 5.65 ERA, striking out 52. \nTufts could not be reached for comment as of press time. \nMeans said he thinks he and Tufts are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of talent. He said it’s a good sign for IU baseball to have that kind of talent in the program. \n“Next year, who knows how many kids are gonna go pro off that team,” Means said. \nFor now, Means said the Reds are looking to develop what he called “raw” tools, and his goal is to be in the Majors in three years or less. \nMeans flew out to Billings on Sunday morning, bags packed and ready to take on his dream. To the “teddy bear” from Avon Lake, Ohio, it has all come full circle. \n“Knowing,” he said, “that my career has officially started, knowing that all the hard work growing up, playing in the front yard with my dad, my neighbors ... everything’s starting to fall into place.”
(06/12/08 12:41am)
Editor’s Note: Due to the nature of summer deadlines, this column does not take into account games played in Group A on Thursday, June 11. Sue me. \nThreatened with slumber-inducing boredom brought on by this Greece-Sweden final first group match of Euro 2008, I thought I’d tackle a new kind of prediction column – one that allows me to watch these teams in Cup form before making my picks. \nPerhaps a few of you will shirk my words because I got to see Italy fall apart against the Netherlands or Spain dismantle Russia. I’ll admit, those results might tamper with my predictions.\nSo consider this more analysis if you’d like; let’s get to it.
(06/05/08 3:14am)
In a move weeks ago that hearkened back to the glory days of Ewe Blab, IU coach Tom Crean added a piece to the men’s basketball team the Hoosiers have not seen the likes of in many years. Realistically though, Tijan Jobe should probably count for a few pieces. \nJobe, all 7 feet and 255 pounds of him, comes to IU after a stop at Olney Central College in Illinois. His numbers are far from staggering: The big man from Gambia averaged just 4.0 points, 4.0 rebounds and a single block per game in his time at Olney. \nPerhaps haunted by the nightmare of watching Marco Killingsworth try in vain to play defense, some Hoosier fans have raised the question: What does this guy do for us if he can’t score or rebound prolifically? Won’t he just be a big, slow, walking first-half foul-out? But I see more than that, and here’s three reasons why:\n1. Jobe is a body the likes of which the Big Ten rarely sees. He isn’t Brian Butch or any of Butch’s clones at Wisconsin, no. He will not be asked – nor should he be asked – to carry any sort of offensive load. \nRather, he should and will be a space-filler, and a very good one. The man is positively gigantic, and driving the lane against him will be an enviable task for no one.\nSo what if he racks up fouls at a clip worthy of Mike Davis-era A.J. Ratliff? So what if he scores two points a game? Jobe fills a need in a rather large hole that the Hoosiers haven’t had in the time – albeit short – that I can remember watching them. \nNever discount the immense (no pun intended) value of a big body in the paint. \n2. There seems little doubt that IU will go next year as its young guards go. Nick Williams, Verdell Jones, Devan Dumes and even Matt Roth will be key to any success, and I mean any success, IU might find in late 2008 and early 2009.\nI confess I’ve never had the chance to see any of these young men play, but I can tell you Crean likes his guards to drive the paint, and why shouldn’t he? It’s an absolute necessity in an offense without a proven big man to get into the lane and collapse the perimeter defense, thus creating better outside looks. What’s more, it’s one of the easiest ways to get to the foul line – just ask Eric Gordon.\nBut you can’t drive the lane if there isn’t a presence in the lane already there in need of defensive respect. All due credit to Tom Pritchard – and we’ll come to him in a moment – he won’t command the same respect at 6-foot-8 that D.J. White could at 6-foot-9 without at least two years of development. \nHaving Jobe in the middle, while not creating many offensive options, does place a burden on any opposing defense. Simply put, he’s too huge to be ignored, because with his 7-foot-5 1/2 wingspan, he can dunk standing up. Defenses will have to leave at least one big body on Jobe even when a guard comes into the lane, because if they don’t, the Hoosiers will probably have the easiest two points in basketball history. \n3. Finally we come to Pritchard. I’m high on Tom Pritchard. He impressed me in the way he carried his high school team on his shoulders after the loss of their other star, Michigan State-bound Delvon Roe. I like his range, and I like what little I’ve heard from him about coming to IU after the debacle that was last season. \nHowever, I think we can all agree that Pritchard, only a three-star prospect coming to college, will need some development. Further, I believe it safe to say Pritchard’s 6-foot-8 frame makes him a natural power forward, not a center. \nHere’s where Jobe again proves his worth. Having a 7-foot, 255-pound center lets Pritchard develop at his natural position – power forward – and allows him to operate and grow into Crean’s system without being keyed on or doubled down as the Hoosiers only low-post presence. \nNothing scared me more for the future than the idea of Pritchard playing center, but it’s something he would have had to do had Jobe not brought his game to Bloomington. \nNow I will grant you that all of these positives are predicated on Jobe learning how to be effective, both offensively and defensively, without fouling. That is the key to this not-so-little experiment. If Crean can teach Tijan Jobe to play effectively within himself and avoid racking up silly, needless fouls, the big man can be a truly important member of this team. I still wouldn’t expect many points.
(05/29/08 1:39am)
Nine months ago, I stood in the lobby of the Noblesville High School gym just after a stop on the IU basketball barnstorming tour, and I saw the future. \nThe tour, which runs every year, takes the newest class of IU basketball players around Indiana to play local teams of high school stars in up-and-down games featuring All-Star-Game-like defense. I saw one of those games, and I saw the future.\nGranted, Eric Gordon – not playing because of a test the next day – would likely be gone a season later. But there was still plenty of talent on that court to see IU through the next few years. \nI saw Jordan Crawford, raw and noticeably rough around the edges, but wielding a good shot while having the ability to create. I saw Brandon McGee and Eli Holman, long and athletic, pushing outside and inside down the court to give Crawford options. I saw DeAndre Thomas making passes I wouldn’t have imagined the big man could make.\nI imagined that group, along with the absent Jamarcus Ellis, next to the likes of D.J. White and Armon Bassett, and my mouth watered. As a citizen savant of basketball, I wanted to see what that team could do.\nNow they are all but gone, that future I saw. Only Crawford remains, and for how long is anyone’s guess. Graduation and the exodus that followed Tom Crean’s arrival in Bloomington have left IU basketball a shell of its former self.\nNever before have I seen such a thing in sports, such an absolute overhaul of an entire program in just one year. Not only did the team dissipate before our very eyes, but the entire coaching and support staff are gone with them, drifted away before us like corn silk in the Midwest wind. \nI’m not saying the system was better before. On the contrary, I think this renovation of IU basketball was absolutely necessary, and I applaud Tom Crean for having the gumption to realize what needed to be done and doing it in the face of pure program destruction.\nBut one fact remains: The team you sat inside Assembly Hall and watched dismantle Kentucky and thrash Michigan State is no more. Come next October, IU students will pack Assembly Hall and cheer on a new group of Hoosiers.\nIt is unlikely that more than a select few will mourn the passing of the team they cheered just one year prior.\nThose Hoosiers are gone now, a passing vision in the backs of our minds. Nick Williams will in time come to replace Eric Gordon, and Verdell Jones with him. Tijan Jobe will replace, well, no one – the Hoosiers haven’t had a body that big in years.\nBut there is a part of me that will miss the future that is now the past. Not because I’m an ardent fan of IU basketball, but because I wanted to see possibility become reality. I wanted to see what became of potential developed into success. At their core, every sportswriter has a passion for their job, and I wanted to see that show.\nBut the past is just that, and it’s never going to return. The bed has been made, however surreally, by sanctions, cell phones and report cards, and now it’s time for Hoosier fans, coaches and (mostly new) players alike to lie in it.\nSee you in October.
(05/23/08 1:34am)
Essentially, the IU baseball team is now playing with house money. They’ve been to the brink and back, and to hear them tell it, they’re playing with nothing to lose. \nAn the Hoosiers’ season stood just 90 feet away with the bases loaded and in out in the ninth inning of their second-round Big Ten Tournament match-up with No. 5-seed Ohio State. Enter Matt Carr – a redshirt freshman who put the Hoosiers on his back for the second time in a week, tossing 7 2/3 innings of relief work – to induce a 4-6-3 double play out of Buckeye pinch hitter Ryan Dew and extend the game an extra inning, all the Hoosiers would need. Eric Arnett – pinch-running for Michael Earley – and Andrew Means both scored in the top of the 10th, and Carr set the Buckeyes down in order in the bottom half. \nAfter the game, IU coach Tracy Smith heaped praise on Carr’s performance. \n“Matt Carr is doing the Matt Carr thing again,” Smith said. “That was huge for him to come in there and shut (the game) down again like that.”\nCarr said after the game he tried not to complicate things on the mound, something he’s tried to do all season. \n“Just locating my fastball and getting ahead of hitters,” Carr said, “that’s really all I've been trying to do.”\nCarr came on for All-Big Ten left-hander Matt Bashore, who struggled through 2 1/3 innings to begin the game. Bashore, the Hoosiers’ staff ace all season, fought with his command in the short time he was on the mound, walking six and giving up six runs, five earned. \n“We've asked a lot of Matt Bashore over the course of the season,” IU coach Tracy Smith said of his struggling southpaw after the game. “He just didn’t have it today.”\nOn the flip side, the Hoosier offense came back to life one day after mustering just one run in a 6-1 loss to Penn State. IU knocked 15 hits and 10 runs. Five different players had at least one RBI and Means added two steals. \nThe Hoosiers got off to a flyer, scoring five runs in the first two innings and three more in the fourth. But they were shut down the rest of the way until the 10th, as Ohio State chipped away at their lead, finally tying the game with a run in the eighth. \nJunior left fielder Chris Hervey, who drove in the final run on a two-out hit, said the Hoosier batters weren’t going to get shut down today like they did yesterday against Penn State. \n“All the hitters, we take pride in our hitting and doing well,” Hervey said. “We were more aggressive (today).”\nSmith admitted after the game that he’s been disappointed with his team to this point in the Big Ten Tournament. He said the Hoosiers have “played like a young team that looks like a six-seed” instead of continuing to do what got them into the tournament. \nSmith acknowledged that perhaps his team didn’t deserve the win after all their walks and mistakes, but he added that it’s a good sign that they were able to make so many mistakes and still reel in a victory and keep their season alive. \n“That’s the positive we take from it,” Smith said. “We said, ‘You know what, lets show OSU how good we are that we can make five errors and walk a gazillion guys and still beat them.’”\nSmith said junior right-hander Tyler Tufts will take the mound tomorrow for the Hoosiers, and he said he doubts Bashore will have enough time to recover and pitch again in the tournament. However, he said the Tipp City, Ohio, native might be brought in situationally if needed. \nAfter losing their first tournament game, the Hoosiers stand on the brink of elimination in any future contest. A loss means an exit from the tournament, an exit from the tournament the end of the season. However, at this point, the Hoosiers are thinking solely about themselves, and not worrying about potential opponents until they become clear. \n“I don’t care who we play, doesn’t matter to me,” Hervey said. Smith, who said he’s taking the rest of the season one game at a time, put it plainly: \n“Bring it on.”
(05/22/08 1:15am)
Four weeks ago, the IU baseball team was in a rut. It returned battered and beaten after losing four straight to Penn State and 10 of their last 12 overall in the Big Ten. Then, to hear it from IU coach Tracy Smith, Tyler Rogers moved from third base to his natural position at second, and everything changed. \nSince Rogers made the switch, the Hoosiers are 11-5 in conference play – including 5-3 against Michigan and Purdue, the top two teams in the conference – and 12-6 overall. \nSmith said a big part of that turnaround came from the play of Rogers and shortstop Tyler Cox, whose play in the middle infield helped shore up a defense that’s spent 2008 in last place in the Big Ten. \n“That to me is the whole key to what has happened,” Smith said. “It was no secret that our struggles as a team were related to our struggles defensively.”\nCox and Rogers have made a combined seven errors in the last 29 games. In that stretch, they have aided in turning 21 and 15 double plays apiece, respectively. \nBall State transfer Rogers said the chemistry he developed with Cox came quickly and without any real effort.\n“Me and him were both just comfortable with one another,” Rogers said.\nThe duo seems to have sparked a defensive resurgence. The Hoosiers, though currently ranked a humble ninth out of 10 teams in Big Ten defense, only recently moved up that one position after firmly entrenching themselves in last place for much of the season. \nCox also pointed out that a strong middle infield does more than just give pitchers confidence in their defense. \n“When you have a strong middle infield, you put more trust in your pitching staff,” Cox said. “Instead of trying to strike people out, they’re trying to throw pitches that they hit on the ground.”\nSmith said it’s helped to have a regular lineup every day, where a month ago he was “changing short, second, third all the time.”\n“It makes us a better baseball team,” Smith said.
(05/21/08 5:05pm)
Just weeks ago, it was nearly unimaginable to picture the IU baseball team in their first Big Ten Tournament in five years.\nBut splitting a four-game series with powerhouse Michigan, then taking three of four from in-state rival Purdue powered IU to an 11-5 conference finish and a Big Ten Tournament appearance. What’s more, IU is arguably the Big Ten’s hottest team believing they can keep winning on through the weekend.\nIU (26-26, 15-17) could certainly make a case for their hot streak, having just finished a sweep of Michigan State last weekend, the team’s first sweep of a conference opponent since 1999. However, IU coach Tracy Smith said again Tuesday that he feels his team is handling its newfound success like a squad of veterans.\n“The thing I’m most impressed with is that they’re not satisfied,” Smith said by phone.\nIU has put up impressive numbers for a team that only on the last weekend of the season qualified for the Big Ten Tournament. The Hoosiers are one-thousandth of a point behind Illinois for best team batting average, and they have more hits, runs, doubles, triples and home runs than the Illini, who are currently ranked first in the Big Ten in hitting. The Hoosiers’ pitching staff came on strong late in the season to move up from eighth near the end of the spring semester all the way to sixth, cutting the team ERA from 6.86 to 6.21.\nThe Hoosiers’ first-round opponent will be Penn State (26-29, 17-15), a team that took all four games at home in the two teams’ only regular-season meeting. It was the next weekend against Michigan when the Hoosiers began to turn their season around.\nSenior shortstop Tyler Cox said the Hoosiers feel good heading into the tournament, and they’d like to return to the Nittany Lions some of what they got on the road in April.\n“We definitely owe Penn State,” Cox said. “Not only are we playing to win a Big Ten championship, but we owe them something in return.”\nPenn State offers plenty of fight for the Hoosiers, having finished third in the conference, out-dueling Illinois for the No. 3 spot. The Nittany Lions come into the series off a series split with Minnesota and a sweep of Iowa before that.\nOn paper, the Hoosiers seem the better team, besting the Nittany Lions by a wide margin in hitting while only standing one place behind Penn State in Big Ten pitching. The Hoosiers’ improved defense over the last third of the regular season even moved them to ninth in the Big Ten, one spot ahead of new cellar-dweller Penn State.\nBut the Nittany Lions still hold a 4-0 advantage in the season series, something the Hoosiers have not forgotten. After a five-year absence from a tournament competition, Cox put it simply: “We’ve got a lot to prove.”\nThat attitude has been prevalent since shortly after the Hoosiers notched a resounding 14-5 game-four victory over Michigan State last Saturday to book a place in the Big Ten Tournament. \nSenior utility infielder David Trager said the Hoosiers “deserve” to be in the tournament, but they also know that the regular season means nothing from this point forward.\nTrager acknowledged that the Hoosiers hit a low point during the Penn State series, which saw them fall to 2-10 over their three previous series. However, he said the team used that and the subsequent series against Michigan as a rallying point, something they had struggled with in the past.\n“This year, we really regrouped and kept playing our game,” Trager said on the team bus headed back from Michigan State on Saturday. “We’re looking at a situation now ... it’s definitely put us in a very good position.”\nSmith is optimistic about his team’s fortunes in the tournament, provided they can keep backing up one of the conference’s top offenses with vastly improved defense and pitching.\n“The guys have a good workman’s approach to it and if everybody’s healthy ... I think we’ll have a chance.”\nTaking the mound for the Hoosiers this afternoon is sophomore Eric Arnett, who is 4-4 with 5.22 ERA.
(05/19/08 3:12am)
Several weeks ago, IU coach Tracy Smith told reporters he had stopped looking at where his team stood in the Big Ten standings. Now he’s free to look at them as much as he wants. \n“Honestly, I haven’t yet. But yes, I will,” Smith said Saturday after his team swept Michigan State in four games to make their first Big Ten Tournament appearance since 2003. The Hoosiers (28-28, 15-17) defeated the Spartans 9-2, 7-6, 7-3 and 14-5 in their most successful conference series of the year, just when they needed it most.\nThe Hoosiers entered the weekend needing either three or four wins plus some help from Michigan against Northwestern to make the tournament. The Wolverines won their first two games at home against the Wildcats while the Hoosiers took care of the rest. \nThe series started with a strong performance from sophomore right-hander Eric Arnett, who threw eight innings of two-run baseball. The Hoosiers backed him up with nine runs, and Chris Squires struck out the side in the ninth for the win. \nJunior left fielder Chris Hervey, who had three hits – including a home run – and four RBIs in game one, characterized the game-one win as “huge.”\n“Winning that game gave us a little wiggle room,” Hervey said. \nGame two marked the fourth straight decision won by sophomore southpaw Matt Bashore, who pitched his fifth complete game of the year in the 7-6 win. \n“We’ve been preaching all along, it’s about what happens on the hill,” Smith said of his pitching staff’s performance over the weekend. “I think the guys are starting to get a little bit more confidence on the mound.”\nIn game three, senior Chris McCombs and sophomore Matt Carr, both right-handers, combined to shut the Michigan State offense down in a 7-3 victory. Carr was especially solid, pitching scoreless innings in relief.\nAt the plate, freshman first baseman Jerrud Sabourin continued his hot hitting this year, going 2-for-4 with a double and two RBIs.\nThe Hoosiers entered game four needing just one win or one Northwestern loss to advance into the Big \nTen Tournament. \nHervey said the Hoosiers adopted an attitude of “let’s take care of business ourselves,” which he said made winning all the more sweet.\n“It’s so much better because it shows we did it ourselves,” said Hervey, who also set an IU record of his own this weekend: most times hit by a pitch in a single season. “I think it helps with momentum. We’re playing our best baseball of the year right now.”\nThe Hoosiers took matters into their own hands, scoring seven runs in the first two innings en route to a resounding 14-5 victory that ended the five-year drought. \nPitcher Tyler Tufts forced Michigan State into six double plays in a game the Spartans were never really in, as the Hoosiers staked Tufts to a 5-0 lead in the top of the first. \nSophomore catcher Josh Phegley closed out one of the best hitting seasons in the program’s history, banging his 13th home run of the season and plating three RBIs. Those three gave Phegley 43 RBIs in Big Ten play this year, besting by three the previous record for RBIs in a conference season set by Illinois’ Mike Klimek in 1996.\nSmith said after the game that he was most impressed with his team’s approach to their critical four-game road trip. He said they never seemed tense or looked like they were putting too much pressure on themselves. \nSmith also said he’s pleased with the way his team has reacted so far to their first postseason appearance as IU baseball players, calling their overall demeanor “businesslike.”\nPhegley said his coach had it right in terms of their attitude, and he exuded the confidence the Hoosiers used to score 37 runs in their first conference series sweep since 1999.\n“We’re gonna be a tough team to beat if our offense and pitching are on at the same time,” said Phegley of the team’s tournament chances. They open conference play at 3:35 p.m. Wednesday against Penn State, a team that swept IU in College Park, Penn., earlier this year. \nFor IU senior shortstop David Trager, one of just four players in their last year at IU, making the Big Ten Tournament is a sweet end to a mostly bitter career at IU. He and his three fellow seniors – McCombs, shortstop Tyler Cox and right-handed pitcher Doug Fleenor – all stated throughout the year their desire to close out their IU careers with a conference tournament appearance. To hear it from Trager, three years of rebuilding have been worth a last year of success. \n“It’s great that it is our senior year and we’re making the turn in the program,” Trager said. “All this hard work is finally paid out.”
(05/19/08 12:25am)
Josh Phegley and Chris Hervey went to East Lansing, Mich., this weekend chasing remarkably different records. While Phegley was locked in on hitting pitches thrown at him, Hervey had his eyes on getting hit by pitches thrown his way. \nBoth the sophomore catcher and junior left fielder set new records this weekend in the Hoosiers’ four-game sweep of Michigan State, which put IU in its first Big Ten Tournament in five years. \nPhegley, one of the best hitters in the Big Ten, set a conference record for most RBIs in a conference season with 45, besting the previous mark by one. The sophomore catcher from Terre Haute plated three runs in the Hoosiers Saturday victory over Michigan State to close out the conference season. \nPhegley, whose average has been at the top of the Big Ten almost all season, said he felt humbled by the record.\n“There’s something to be said about that,” said the second-year backstop. “It really is awesome.”\nIU coach Tracy Smith, who was with the Hoosiers as an assistant when Mike Klimek set the Big Ten record in 1996, was thrilled for Phegley to break the conference mark. \n“I remember the kid from Illinois (who) had the record,” Smith said. “I thought that guy was the most ungodly hitter at the time ... I think it’s great for (Phegley).”\nIU assistant coach Tyler Best said last week that Phegley is a quiet, lead-by-action kind of player, an assessment with which Phegley agreed.\n“People will start to watch and see you go about your business,” Phegley said. “Our entire team’s offensive production has just been contagious the whole year.” \nStatistics support that claim.\nAt the end of the season, the Hoosiers find themselves just .001 points behind Illinois for first in the Big Ten in team batting, even they have more hits, runs, doubles, triples and home runs than the Illini. \nHervey’s record has nearly as much to do with run production as Phegley’s. On Saturday, the St. James, N.Y., native took a first-inning pitch from A.J. Achter off of his oft-bruised body to set a new IU record for being hit by a pitch 17 times in a single season. True to his word from two weeks ago, Hervey kept the ball. \n“I actually did,” he said, laughing. “I like (the record) just because it shows toughness and a willingness to do whatever it takes to win.”\nSmith was equally pleased to see Hervey get the left-fielder’s “knucklehead award.” Smith said earlier in the year that he liked Hervey chasing the record, because he thought it showed Hervey would do whatever it takes to win, even if it hurts.\n“That was good for him,” Smith said of Hervey’s new place in IU baseball history. “I don’t know that he necessarily goes up there trying to get hit, he’s just a fearless player.”\nBoth players personify the team’s late surge into the postseason – professionalism and the determination to do whatever it takes to win – something echoed by Smith. \nThe third-year coach said players like Phegley and Hervey help the Hoosiers walk the line between focused and relaxed. He used Phegley as an example, saying the sophomore spent time before Saturday’s game shagging fly balls in center field and throwing mock warm-up pitches in the bullpen.\n“As I thought back on the weekend, they were tremendously calm,” Smith said. “I’m impressed with their mentality at this point. I hope we can carry that into the tournament.”
(05/15/08 1:04am)
Matt Bashore got to IU a couple of hours before his freshman roommate Josh Phegley last year, but now both the Big Ten’s best hitter for average and best strikeout pitcher seem to be arriving at the exact same time on the diamond.\nPhegley and Bashore headline the Hoosier lineup and pitching staff respectively, and their statistics put them among the conference leaders in several major categories. Bashore says they wouldn’t have it any other way. \n“We knew we were good ballplayers,” Bashore said of himself, his roommate and their entire sophomore class. “We didn’t say we needed a year, we expected ourselves to just come out and play.”\nBashore and Phegley were part of a 19-person recruiting class that’s since been trimmed to 11 players. But their size within the program and collective skill on the diamond has made IU coach Tracy Smith’s first full recruiting class the face of the program.\nThe relationship Phegley and Bashore developed living together last year has paid off. The pitcher and catcher are usually on the same page when Bashore takes the mound. Phegley said that closeness makes it easier for them to communicate quickly and effectively during games. \n“Just knowing him that well, I’d probably say things to him that I wouldn’t say to anyone else,” Phegley said. “I wasn’t afraid to hurt his feelings to help him out a little bit.”
(05/15/08 12:51am)
Tuesday’s game against Butler might not have mattered in the conference picture, but it mattered just the same for the IU baseball team. They scattered 16 hits and 13 runs over nine innings, running through four different Butler pitchers en route to a 13-5 victory over the Bulldogs. \nThe Hoosiers welcomed in-state foe Butler to Sembower Field for one last 2008 home game, a midweek matchup prior to IU’s pivotal four-game set with Michigan State this weekend. IU coach Tracy Smith elected to make several changes to the lineup before and during the game to save some of his key starters for this weekend’s win-or-go-home series in East Lansing, Mich. The Hoosiers opened the scoring early, notching four runs in the first two innings against Butler starter Joe Ochs. But in the third inning, IU put the game well out of reach. \nThe Hoosiers batted around in the frame, plating seven runs while driving Ochs from the game. \nJunior center fielder Andrew Means said after the game that the Hoosiers’ dominant performance against Butler is important heading into the weekend. \n“We just wanna go into the weekend feeling good, feeling hot and knowing that we can play solid baseball and hit the ball around the park a little bit,” Means said. \nLittle-used utility man Brad Henke was a star for the Hoosiers, starting in the hot corner at third base, slapping three hits and scoring twice. \n“You try to work guys in when you can, and the midweek games you try to do that as much as you can,” Smith said after the game of Henke’s contributions. “He’s one of our hardest workers we have.”\nOn the mound, IU used four different pitchers to stop the visitors, giving the bullpen and this weekend’s four starters plenty of rest before facing Michigan State. Freshman left-hander Kyle Leiendecker started for the Hoosiers, going four innings and giving up three runs before giving way to senior Doug Fleenor, who picked up the win in his last appearance at Sembower Field. Fleenor struck out four, including two in the fifth inning. \n“I just had a good curveball, and I was getting ahead of the hitters a little bit,” Fleenor said after Tuesday’s game. \nFleenor also said it helped him to come out of the bullpen already staked with a 12-3 lead.\n“It’s a lot easier,” said Fleenor, who added that he could “just go after hitters” with that kind of cushion. \nFleenor said after the game that winning in convincing fashion should keep the Hoosiers relaxed and confident heading into the Michigan State series. \n“It just keeps the guys a little bit loose to come in and have a day like this,” Fleenor said.\nSmith said after Tuesday’s win that he believes his team is a legitimate Big Ten Tournament title contender. They just have to prove they belong there first. \n“We know if we get in it, we certainly are capable of winning it,” Smith said. “I would like to see that for the kids, I really would.”\nFor Fleenor, however, there is added significance to an already important series. The senior from Richmond, Ind., has never been to a Big Ten Tournament. The last time the Hoosiers qualified came the year before his freshman year.\n“Since I’ve been here, this is the closest we’ve been to having a legitimate shot at (making the tournament),” Fleenor said. “If we come in here and take care of business, I think things will work out for us.”\nMeans said it all comes down to confidence for the Hoosiers on the road in perhaps the most important series of Smith’s tenure at IU. \n“We know we can hit,” Means said, “we know we can play good defense, we know we can pitch well. We just need to go out this weekend, do all three things and have a good weekend.”
(05/13/08 2:31pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU baseball team headed up I-65 this weekend for one of two pivotal end-of-season series that will help determine whether they qualify for their first Big Ten Tournament in five years. After a 2-2 series split against host Northwestern, the Hoosiers now control their own destiny heading into next weekend’s regular-season finale against Michigan State. Game four was a barn-burner Sunday. After a long rain delay, the two teams battled back and forth, scoring almost at will. But the Hoosiers prevailed 14-12 in extra innings thanks to good hitting and some small ball at the top of the order. Sophomores Josh Phegley and Kipp Schutz both homered for the Hoosiers in the series finale, and Phegley knocked in RBIs No. 63 and 64. The Hoosiers will conclude their home schedule at 3 p.m. Wednesday when they take on Butler at Sembower Field, but the focus will quickly shift from that matchup to the Hoosiers’ four-game set against Michigan State next weekend. The Spartans, as well as Northwestern – who is set to play conference powerhouse Michigan on the last weekend of the regular season – sit between the Hoosiers and sixth place in the Big Ten standings. IU coach Tracy Smith pointed on Monday to midseason struggles against Illinois, Iowa and Penn State as a major reason for their current position. However, the team responded to that slump by going 5-3 against the top two teams in the conference, Michigan and Purdue, to put themselves right back in the thick of the Big Ten race. “Where we stubbed our toe during the middle of the season, it kind of put us in a position where we had to fight in the end,” Smith said, adding that he was proud of his team for turning their season around against the Big Ten’s two best teams. There are two ways IU can overtake Northwestern for the sixth spot. Should IU take three of four at Michigan State and Northwestern lose three of four to Michigan, or IU sweep Michigan State and Northwestern split with Michigan, the Hoosiers would be in. They own the tiebreaker in either scenario. Though Smith said it’s nice for the Hoosiers to be in control of their own destiny, he expects his team to focus on each game one at a time, ignoring the bigger picture. “I told the kids, when this current IU team locks it in … if they’re in that mindset, we are a tough team to beat,” Smith said by phone Monday. “(If we do that) I think we’ll be pretty pleased at where we are.”
(05/12/08 9:07pm)
The IU baseball team headed up I-65 this weekend for one of two pivotal end-of-season series that will help determine whether they qualify for their first Big Ten Tournament in five years. After a 2-2 series split against host Northwestern, the Hoosiers now control their own destiny heading into next weekend’s regular-season finale against Michigan State. \nGame four was a barn-burner Sunday. After a long rain delay, the two teams battled back and forth, scoring almost at will. \nBut the Hoosiers prevailed 14-12 in extra innings thanks to good hitting and some small ball at the top of the order. Sophomores Josh Phegley and Kipp Schutz both homered for the Hoosiers in the series finale, and Phegley knocked in RBIs No. 63 and 64. \nThe Hoosiers will conclude their home schedule at 3 p.m. Wednesday when they take on Butler at Sembower Field, but the focus will quickly shift from that matchup to the Hoosiers’ four-game set against Michigan State next weekend. \nThe Spartans, as well as Northwestern – who is set to play conference powerhouse Michigan on the last weekend of the regular season – sit between the Hoosiers and sixth place in the Big Ten standings. \nIU coach Tracy Smith pointed on Monday to midseason struggles against Illinois, Iowa and Penn State as a major reason for their current position. However, the team responded to that slump by going 5-3 against the top two teams in the conference, Michigan and Purdue, to put themselves right back in the thick of the Big Ten race. \n“Where we stubbed our toe during the middle of the season, it kind of put us in a position where we had to fight in the end,” Smith said, adding that he was proud of his team for turning their season around against the Big Ten’s two best teams. \nThere are two ways IU can overtake Northwestern for the sixth spot. Should IU take three of four at Michigan State and Northwestern lose three of four to Michigan, or IU sweep Michigan State and Northwestern split with Michigan, the Hoosiers would be in. They own the tiebreaker in either scenario. \nThough Smith said it’s nice for the Hoosiers to be in control of their own destiny, he expects his team to focus on each game one at a time, ignoring the bigger picture. \n“I told the kids, when this current IU team locks it in … if they’re in that mindset, we are a tough team to beat,” Smith said by phone Monday. “(If we do that) I think we’ll be pretty pleased at where we are.”
(05/11/08 4:00am)
It is often said: To those whom much is given, much is expected.\nSuch is the case with college athletes given scholarships – and often a fair bit more – based purely on athletic ability. And, as the above phrase would suggest, the more high-profile the sport, the more is given and expected of such athletes. \nMaybe that’s why we’re so mad at Eli Holman, DeAndre Thomas, Jamarcus Ellis and Armon Bassett. Maybe we just can’t handle the fact that they had so much laid at their feet for their skill with a round orange ball and yet chose to throw all of that away.\nLet me preface what I am about to say by stating the following: I do not condone skipping class, skipping practice, back-talking a coach or anything else any of these players may have done that led to their parting of ways from IU basketball. \nBut we as a sports-watching society have come to an alarming point in history when athletes like Ellis, Holman, Bassett and Thomas are far too dispensable. It occurs to me that in all I’ve read I haven’t seen a word written for concern of the futures of these young men – only the IU basketball program. \nWhat’s gotten lost in the exodus of Kelvin Sampson and the subsequent whitewashing that has been Tom Crean’s short tenure at IU is the fact that these kids are still just that: kids. \nThey were never given the kind of discipline necessary to teach them personal responsibility, so it is natural to conclude that they failed to exercise that responsibility on or off the court – obviously a product of Kelvin Sampson’s rather loose grip on his program. \nAgain, I’m not saying they deserve a second chance, and I’m not advocating the idea that IU should do something for these young men. But the fact remains that many people – I’ll shamefully include myself at times – see college athletes as only tools for entertainment and athletic success. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever, never mind the fact that we have condoned years of cheating the system. Five-star recruits deserve a new Chevy Suburban every year, right? \nIf you believe that, I’ll bet you’ve never heard of Kevin Ross. Ross, a 6-foot-9-inch basketball star at Kansas City’s Wyandotte High School, played four years at Creighton in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But that’s not what made Kevin Ross so special. \nAfter four years of college, Kevin Ross left Creighton unable to read. Kevin Ross was told if he attended Creighton he would be helped in remedial reading classes. I guess they never got around to that. \nRoss has since spoken out about his past, hoping to help others avoid what happened to him. When ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” did a piece on Ross in 2002, the network reported that “over 10 percent of the schools in Division I have a graduation rate of zero percent for five straight classes of African American male basketball players.”\nSomething tells me that hasn’t changed much in six years, at least not judging by IU’s recent APR performance – the basketball team scored an 899, 26 points below the required 925 and good for No. 268 out of 339 Division One programs. \nSo what, you ask, am I getting at?\nWell, it occurs to me that if you teach someone to be more responsible for their own actions, they will likely start taking more responsibility in turn. Maybe it’s time we stopped giving these kids a free ride because they can play basketball, and maybe it’s time we stopped acting so shocked and appalled when they falter after being given everything and working for nothing. \nBut that’s going to require a new attitude, one that actually puts the “student” in “student-athlete” first, instead of giving them everything when they’re skills are of use to us and then disposing of them once that usefulness has come to an end. \nIn the meantime, perhaps we should stop publicly tearing down the characters of four young men whose lives right now are likely pretty much in tatters already. I think we helped them enough already, maybe it’s time to leave them alone.
(05/08/08 1:56pm)
The IU baseball team didn’t really need junior right-hander Tyler Tufts to take care of Purdue by himself in the last of a four-game series Monday. But he did anyway – with plenty of help from his friends.\nAfter taking games two and three of the series in a Sunday doubleheader, the Hoosiers pounded in-state rival Purdue to close it out, winning 13-1 on the back of a Josh Phegley grand slam – the second in two games for IU – and four runs on two hits from senior David Trager. Tufts pitched his third consecutive complete game, beating a top conference foe for the second time in as many weeks after going nine and taking game four from Michigan in April.\nThe Hoosiers staked Tufts to a 2-0 lead in the second inning thanks to Trager’s two-out, two-run single. Purdue answered with one run in the top of the third, and the score stayed static until the fifth, when Phegley’s second grand slam of the year opened the gap.\nAnother two-out hit from Trager scored two more, leaving the score at 8-1 and effectively putting the Boilermakers away. Tufts cruised, splashing 11 hits across the board while striking out four. \nIU coach Tracy Smith said it felt good for him personally and as a team to beat Purdue soundly in the last two games of the series. \n“To me personally, it was kind of gratifying,” Smith said. “There was special emphasis on not just beating them, but beating them soundly.”\nJunior Andrew Means said Wednesday that the Hoosiers will be looking to carry the momentum and confidence from the Purdue series to this weekend against Northwestern.\n“It’s good to get out there and put those types of numbers up against a good team,” Means said. “It just gives our team a little boost for the end of the season.”\nThe midweek wasn’t quite so kind to the Hoosiers, who welcomed the University of Louisville to Sembower Field after losing to the Cardinals 5-4 in Louisville earlier this year. IU battled with their visitors down I-65, but Louisville’s bullpen just proved too much to handle in a 13-6 Cardinal win. \nThe Hoosiers hit three home runs in the contest, highlighted by sophomore right fielder Kipp Schutz’s blast that cleared the scoreboard in left center field. But it wasn’t enough, as Louisville’s bullpen set down 14 in a row late in the game and the Cardinal bats lit up to erase a 6-5 deficit. \nPhegley and sophomore second baseman Tyler Rogers both homered as well in the loss, putting the Hoosiers’ home run total this season at 30. They hit just eight as a team last season. \nJunior left fielder Chris Hervey said losing to Louisville was tough, but he said the team will move on quickly. \n“Our focus is the weekend, Northwestern, Big Ten games,” Hervey said outside the baseball locker room Wednesday morning. “(Losing) is what it is, but we’ll be ready for the weekend.” The weekend also yielded yet another weekly Big Ten Player of the Week honor, this time for center fielder Means. The two-sport standout hit .562 on the weekend, knocking two doubles, a triple and a home run to tie game two in the bottom of the seventh inning, setting the stage for a walk-off win just two batters later. Means credited a change in his swing made last week that allowed him to stay back on the ball. \nThis weekend’s upcoming series against Northwestern will be the first of two pivotal road trips to close out the conference schedule. Northwestern – 11-13 in conference – and Michigan State – 10-13 in conference – lie just ahead of the Hoosiers in the standings, and the rest of the Big Ten looks to be a six-team dog fight for the last two spots in the conference tournament. \nWith just eight conference games left, IU needs all the wins it can muster – starting this weekend at Northwestern – if it hopes to reach sixth or higher in the conference standings and get back to the Big Ten Tournament. To hear it from Hervey, getting back to the postseason for the first time since 2003 is all the Hoosiers are thinking about. \n“That’s what we play for,” Hervey said. “We play for the postseason.” \nSmith agreed, saying his team can’t change anything in their approach just because the season is coming to a close.\n“We’ve just got to continue to play solid baseball,” Smith said. “We control our own destiny.”
(05/08/08 1:55pm)
Some men are born to greatness; others have it hurled toward them at 92 miles per hour. Such is the case with Chris Hervey, left fielder on the IU baseball team. \nNo, Hervey isn’t chasing some legendary home-run record, nor is he the next Mickey Mantle. But he is on pace to do something no other IU player has ever done – get hit by more than 16 pitches in a single season. \nIt wasn’t something Hervey ever set out to do. \n“There was a couple weeks where I got hit by, like, eight or nine pitches,” Hervey said. He said he asked what the team record was during that spell, and when he heard how close he was, he said “Alright, I’ll see what I can do.”\nHervey has been hit by 15 pitches this year, just one off the IU record of 16 in one season, set by Dan Haegele in 1999. \nHervey credits a change in his batting stance for his success at the plate – and not just in getting hit by pitches. He said he moved up on the plate after last season, and he said he thinks it’s made it tougher for opposing pitchers to throw inside without hitting him.\n“I’m pretty much as close as you can get without getting in trouble,” Hervey said. “They’re either gonna hit me, or they’re going to miss right over the plate, giving me lots of good pitches to hit.”\nHervey said he thinks the chase for the record may not be incredibly historic, but it shows the kind of mentality he and the Hoosiers take toward every at-bat. \n“I think it kind of makes a statement to the kind of player that I am and the kind of team that we are,” Hervey said. “I’m just willing to sit in there and wear a 92-mile-an-hour fastball off my back or my shoulder, doesn’t matter. Whatever it takes to get on base and get the job done.”\nHervey isn’t alone in his pursuit of history. Like Sammy Sosa to Mark McGwire, Hervey is chasing the record with sophomore transfer Michael Earley hot on his tail. \nEarley, who’s been hit 12 times this season, knows where his focus is, and it’s not on the record. \n“It’s definitely more important to beat Chris,” Earley said with a laugh. \nEarley said he’s been getting hit by pitches his whole career – also a result of his stance and mentality. He said he thinks he’s been more consistent than Hervey in getting hit, something that might give him an advantage down the stretch of the regular season.\n“His hit-by-pitches are kind of a flash in a pan,” Earley said. “Mine come more consistently.”\nWhether Hervey – or Earley – breaks the record, IU coach Tracy Smith said he likes the kind of mentality both players display in the batter’s box. \n“I love to see it,” Smith said. “(Hitting) Coach (Tyler) Best preaches all the time about not giving up the inside corner.”\nSmith said the team has an award for that type of tough play, something called a “duke.” Named after John Wayne – whom Smith termed “a baaaad man” – a duke is given each game to the player who shows the most toughness in that game. \n“Hervey’s got a bunch of dukes,” Smith said, laughing. “The guys are having fun with it. I know he is.”\nSo what happens if the record ever does fall? Hervey’s got a plan: “I’ll try and get the ball taken out of play, write something on it. Keep it for the kids and the grandkids to see.”
(05/05/08 2:22am)
You’ll have to forgive the IU baseball team; it’s not their fault the scoreboard is too small. \nAfter an 11-run first inning in game three of the Hoosiers’ four-game series with Purdue, the scoreboard at Sembower Field read just one run for the Hoosiers – there wasn’t room enough for two-digit numbers to be posted in the score line. \nThe Hoosiers sent 15 batters to the plate in the bottom of the first inning in game two Sunday, registering 13 hits and 11 runs and going through three different Purdue pitchers. The first 10 IU batters reached base – Andrew Means did it twice – and the Hoosiers put three home runs on the board. Kipp Schutz hit a grand slam, the team’s second of the season. \nCatcher Josh Phegley said the Hoosiers didn’t take it too easy after the first inning, but he admitted IU’s hot start to game three of the series helped the home squad relax after an exciting game-two win. \n“We totally deflated the other team with that first inning,” Phegley said. “Hits were definitely contagious that first inning. The confidence was so high, I don’t think anybody thought they could get out.”\nAndrew Means said after the game the real challenge for he and his teammates was staying focused after the big inning.\n“It’s tough,” Means said. “You really just gotta go out there and concentrate.” \nThe Hoosiers put another four runs on the board in the second inning en route to a 18-8 victory. Senior right-hander Chris McCombs picked up the victory, going all seven innings and giving up eight runs and striking out six batters. \nMcCombs was the second IU pitcher to pitch a complete game on the day after game-two starter Matt Bashore threw a full seven innings in a 5-4 IU victory. Smith said it helped the Hoosiers’ bullpen get a day off after five different pitchers threw in the team’s 11-7 game-one loss Saturday. \n“That was big for us to get the quality starts from both of those guys,” Smith said. “It helps us for tomorrow.”\nThe game also saw several Hoosiers get a chance in the field or at the plate, including backups catcher Dylan Swift and infielder Brad Henke. Left-handed pitcher Chris Squires even spent the last half inning patrolling left field. \nThe win gave the Hoosiers (20-25, 8-15) eight conference wins, matching their mark from all of last year.\nIt would be hard to believe that the opponent being Purdue didn’t make the win any sweeter for the Hoosiers. \n“Any time you can put up 11 runs in the first inning on your rival school, whether it’s high school, middle school anything,” Means said. “It’s good to get a Sunday sweep against them.”\nSmith said he doesn’t like getting caught up too much in rivalry, but he did say he thought his team enjoyed the festivities of Senior Day and beating Purdue. \n“It was a good emotional day, and I think the kids enjoyed that today, because it was a couple of years ago here that they put it on us in a game like that,” Smith said. “It’s a little nicer when you’ve got your in-state rival that you put it on. Still got one game left though.”\n“It’s a crazy game. I’ve been on both sides of it.”
(05/05/08 2:09am)
IU has won two and lost one in an ongoing four-game series against Purdue. The final game is scheduled for Monday at 1 p.m.\nFor the first 15 innings of the series, the Boilermakers had the Hoosiers down and under control. Andrew Means changed that with one swing of the bat. \nMeans took an Andy Loomis pitch over the left-center field wall for a two-run, game-tying home run– his first of the season. Evan Crawford reached on an infield single, stole second and scored on a Josh Phegley single, and delivered the Hoosiers their 19th win of the season.\nGame two started rough for sophomore ace Matt Bashore, who surrendered four runs – all earned – in the first two innings. \nHe certainly didn’t have much trouble with the top of the order each inning, as he struck out the first batter in each of the first four innings. Overall, Bashore struck out nine in a seven-inning complete game performance picked up his fifth win. \n“He’s a mature kid, a tough pitcher,” IU coach Tracy Smith said after the win. “I just kind of said to him, ‘It looked like you were sleepwalking there for an inning.’ He let a couple of calls get to him but once he settled in and got in his rhythm a little bit, he’s as tough as any pitcher there is.”\nThe Hoosiers’ offense – best in the Big Ten coming into the weekend – had all kinds of trouble figuring out Purdue starter Matt Jansen. The Hoosiers didn’t score until the fourth inning, and those runs were unearned. \nBut they left it late and got to the Purdue bullpen for the second straight game, scoring three off relievers Sunday after putting up five against the visiting relief work Saturday. \nPoor relief pitching and what Smith termed “free stuff” proved too much for the Hoosiers in game one of the doubleheader, as Purdue downed the home team 11-7 despite being out-hit 11-9. \nSophomore catcher Josh Phegley banged another home run for the Hoosiers, his eighth of the year, and Andrew Means and Jerrud Sabourin each had three hits. Means also added three runs batted in and a stolen base on the day for the Hoosiers. \nBut it was IU’s inability to put a stopper in the Purdue offense that did the Hoosiers in, as IU sent five different pitchers to the mound, and only the last – freshman Matt Carr – succeeded in not surrendering at least one run. Sophomore right hander Eric Arnett started the game, going 6 2/3 innings and giving up six runs–five earned–on five hits. He walked three and struck out six. \nArnett left the game down 5-0, but the Hoosiers did all their scoring in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings. However, the bullpen’s inability to hold momentum gave Purdue the win. \n“I don’t want to say nobody wanted the ball,” Smith said Saturday. “But you got to have a little something to you to give yourself a chance to win, because I honestly feel like, the way we’re swinging, if one of these guys could hold it down, we’d have a realistic shot.”\nThe “free bases” Smith talked about weren’t just errors and walks, but also hit batters and similar mental errors that gave the Boilermakers extra baserunners and second chances at innings that should have ended.
(05/02/08 3:02am)
They are all that is left. \nTwo large recruiting classes from different eras in IU baseball yielded these four young men. Seated in a semi-circle on brown leather couches in the IU baseball locker room, rubbing sleep from their eyes on an early morning during finals week, were the only four seniors on a youth-laden IU squad. \nThere they sat, pitchers Chris McCombs and Doug Fleenor and middle infielders Tyler Cox and David Trager, clawing back into their memories and reflecting on nearly four full years of college baseball. \nThe first question is predictable: What will you remember most about your time as a Hoosier? The first answer – change. \n“There’s been a lot of changes while we’ve been here,” Fleenor said. “All four of us started here with a different coach, and we’ve been through the changes with a new coach, with a \nnew system.”\nAll four came to Bloomington to play for Bob Morgan, a coach who retired three years ago with over 1,000 career wins. The coaching switch caused plenty of program turnover and roster upheaval, leaving just four seniors and five juniors on a 38-man roster for the 2008 campaign.\nIt wasn’t always that way. McCombs, Cox and Trager came to IU with 17 other new Hoosiers, many of them freshmen with a few transfers and older first-year players scattered amongst them. Now they’re all that’s left, though maybe not by pure chance. “Our sophomore year, it was the three of us that lived together, and it just kind of worked out that the three of us were the ones that stuck around,” McCombs said, pointing to Cox and Trager as well as himself. “Doug’s a year older than we are – he’s an old man.”\nFleenor is an old man, at least in college terms. The Richmond, Ind., native came in a year earlier than the other three players in the room, but sat out the 2005 campaign after elbow surgery. \nFleenor’s been pitching at Sembower Field long enough to remember Gerry DiNardo’s time as head football coach. The former point guard for the Richmond High School basketball team said he’s glad he made it from there to here. \n“My class had 16 or 17 guys in it, there were only three of us last year – from that whole class,” Fleenor said. “Guys go different ways sometimes. It makes you feel a little bit proud of what you’ve done, still being here in your last year.”\nThat experience has its price. Baseball isn’t always easy on the body, a lesson Trager said he’s learned as his career winds down. \n“I remember after freshman year,” he said, “I’d get done with practice or get done with a weekend, I’d go to sleep that night and wake up. Now it’s like, three days later, I’m still feeling it. I can’t get up.”\nAnd the strain is not just physical for the “old man” Fleenor.\n“There are some people on that team that were in middle school when I was in college,” he said of the Hoosiers, drawing laughs from the other three. \nPerhaps it isn’t so bad to be “top of the chain,” as Trager put it. With small senior classes last year and this year, this group has been thrust into a two-year leadership role with so much inexperience on the squad. It’s not a bad thing though, the way Cox sees it.\n“(The freshmen) all have high hopes and big expectations, and then you get to see them go through the same struggles you went through personally,” said Cox, whose family history in baseball lies two hours north of here at in-state rival Purdue (his grandfather’s brothers played there). “It makes it even better when you can mentor them and get them over that hump a little bit faster than you did.”\nThe fundamental downside to being a senior, it would seem, is that once you’re done, you’re done.\nSo what awaits this senior class as they head into the world? Cox wants to get into sports performance and strength training. McCombs wants to work in college sports. Fleenor just wants to “play in the fiercest intramural basketball league I can find.” Trager isn’t sure just yet. \n“I’d like to take this next year after baseball to do different things, kind of find what I’m really interested in, whatever fits me and my personality, and kind of go from there,” Trager said. “But, you know, wherever that takes me.”\nThere will be life after baseball, as hard as it might be to imagine. None of the four harbor much professional aspiration, though Cox said he’d give it a try if the majors came calling in the June draft or beyond. McCombs – who’s endured two Tommy John procedures already and called going pro a “game-time decision” – said he’s interested “to see what it’s like outside of baseball.”\n“It’s just weird to think about this, I’ve been doing it my whole life,” McCombs said, to which Trager added: “There’s always softball.”\nPerhaps there will be time for slow-pitch, but the season isn’t quite over yet. Both Fleenor and McCombs said the on-the-field memories that will stick with them most are the Hoosiers’ victory over LSU and series split with Michigan just last weekend, respectively. But the one thing McCombs – and every other player on the team – wants out of this season is something they have never experienced.\n“I’d like to play in the Big Ten Tournament,” McCombs said.\nThe Hoosiers have 12 more conference games to dig their way out of last place and into the program’s first conference tournament in five years. Until then, they’re just going to enjoy the end of classes and concentrate on reaching their goal. \nBut the four know it will be the last time baseball will be their only care, something that perhaps makes these final weeks a little sweeter. \n“That’s just the most fun time for us,” Trager said, speaking about the time between the end of finals and the end of the season. “We don’t have anything to worry about except for baseball. It’s a really fun experience, just to have baseball and that’s it.”
(04/28/08 4:28am)
You would have been hard-pressed to find many smiles among the 38 faces of the IU baseball team last weekend after getting swept at Penn State and falling to last place in the Big Ten. What a difference a week makes. \nJust seven days after losing their ninth straight game, the Hoosiers rebounded in a big way, beating conference-leading Michigan 11-4 to take a series split against the Big Ten’s only nationally ranked team. \nThe Hoosiers put the bat to the Wolverines in game four, taking a 4-1 lead after one inning and never looking back. Junior right-hander Tyler Tufts threw a stellar complete game, surrendering four runs on seven hits and striking out three on 141 pitches. After giving up a run in the first and two in the third, Tufts settled down, retiring 18 of the last 23 batters he faced, including 12 in a row at one point. Tufts recorded most of his outs on ground balls, wearing out the middle infield. \n“Keep the ball down, that’s been our plan, not just for me but for all of our pitchers,” Tufts said, referring to IU’s strategy against a Michigan team that leads the Big Ten with 49 home runs.\nThe Hoosiers had plenty of success at the plate as well. Freshman first baseman Jarrud Sabourin went 4-for-5 and sophomore catcher Josh Phegley banged his team-leading seventh home run. The Hoosiers scored four in the first, two in the second, one in the fourth and four in the seventh, plowing through four Michigan pitchers in the process.\nIn game one, Michigan rode 18 hits – including two home runs – to drive through three different IU pitchers. Right-hander Doug Fleenor took the loss after giving up nine runs – eight earned – in 3 2/3 innings of work. \nSophomore second baseman Tyler Rogers came off the bench to provide half of the Hoosiers’ runs. Rogers blasted a three-run pinch-hit home run, his second of the season.\nGame two was a starkly different story for the Hoosiers, who sent southpaw and staff ace Matt Bashore to the hill to counter Michigan’s ace, Carmel, Ind., native Chris Fetter. Bashore pitched a seven-inning complete game, surrendering just one run on five hits while striking out eight. \nThe Tipp City, Ohio, native got into trouble in the top of the seventh, putting runners on second and third. But Bashore induced a ground ball from Michigan second baseman Leif Mahler, sparking an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play. But it was sophomore infielder Evan Crawford who stole the show in game two with just one swing of the bat. Sabourin led off the last frame with a single before he gave way to senior pinch runner David Trager, who moved to second on Rogers’ sacrifice bunt. After an intentional walk to sophomore infielder Michael Earley, Crawford shot a 1-2 pitch from Zach Putnam back up the middle and into center, scoring Trager and ending Michigan’s 12-game win streak. \nBashore said he tried to keep Michigan “off-balance” throughout his game-two win. \nGame three saw IU jump out to a 4-0 lead on Michigan starter Travis Smith, who lasted just 1/3 of an inning before giving way to Michael Powers. But Powers shut the Hoosiers down, allowing just two hits over the next 5 2/3 innings. Michigan turned the tables on IU offensively again in the third game, hitting three solo home runs and scoring in every inning en route to victory. \nAfter Sunday’s win, Smith expressed his pleasure at the Hoosiers’ improved defense, a weakness IU has struggled with all season. The Hoosiers committed just two errors in their two wins at the weekend.\n“It showed we play well defensively, (we) have a chance to win games,” Smith said in front of the dugout at Sembower Field on Sunday. “So I hope that it shows them the emphasis that we put on defense in practice, why we do that.”\nSabourin joked after his four-hit Sunday that his success at the plate was just luck. However, the San Diego native had a little extra incentive with his father visiting Bloomington for the first time. \n“My mom and dad both went to the University of Michigan, actually,” Sabourin said with a grin, “so I’m sure he wanted to see me get some hits on them.”