Sunday, April 12, 2009

Hoosiers Defeat Iowa 8-4 to Complete Sweep

It was nearly 3 of a kind for IU's trio of starters this weekend. After both Blake Monar and Eric Arnett turned in complete game performances in the first 2 games of the series, Matt Bashore nearly followed suit with one of his own. The left-hander threw 8.1 innings and struck out 10, giving up 4 runs (only 2 were earned) on 6 hits and 2 walks. Bashore tamed the Hawkeyes for much of the afternoon but was lifted in favor of Chris Squires in the bottom half of the 9th after he surrendered a run on 3 consecutive hits and a walk to load the bases. Fortunately for Bashore and the rest of the Hoosiers, Squires got the first batter he faced to ground into a game-ending double play to secure an 8-4 victory for the Hoosiers.

Four different Hoosiers (Chris Hervey, Alex Dickerson, Kipp Schutz, and Vince Gonzalez) tallied 2 hits apiece, led by Schutz with a double and 2 RBIs. IU only had 8 hits for the game but took advantage of 9 walks (including 3 intentional walks for Alex Dickerson) and 4 stolen bases (led by Evan Crawford's 2) to plate 8 runs against the Hawkeyes.

Bashore struck out a Hawkeye batter in every inning and limited Iowa to only 3 hits prior to the 9th inning to overcome 3 Hoosier errors. After struggling for much of the non-conference season, Bashore has put together 2 strong outings in a row in Big Ten play. If IU can continue to get these kind of performances from its starters, the sky is the limit for this team. It was great to see Bashore put forth another solid effort, and we can only hope this will continue moving forward.

Once again, check out the highlights courtesy of the Big Ten Network.


If you weren't able to catch the game on the Big Ten Network, one of the most entertaining moments actually came from inside the dugout rather than on the field. Someone (another pitcher, but I'll let you all speculate as to who) blew a bubble and put it on the top of Eric Arnett's hat. Arnett didn't know for a couple innings, and he was continually shown on tv. You could see all the other pitchers and nonstarters smiling and laughing behind him as he had no idea the bubble was there. It's great to see the guys having a fun because I think they play better when they are loose.

The win improved IU's record to 6-2 in Big Ten play and 16-17 overall. With a home match-up against Penn State looming ahead next weekend, the Hoosiers will look to move their overall record to .500 and avenge a 5-4 loss that ended with a walk off homer earlier in the year (see box score here) with a midweek game on Wednesday at Ball State. Great weekend for the Hoosiers!

11 comments:

  1. No offense to Dunning, but I would like to see Schutz back in the 5 hole next game. This would bring up another lefty after Dickerson and limit the intentional walk to create the righty-righty matchup.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HAHAHA! The bubble was hilarious!

    ReplyDelete
  3. If the Hoosiers don't win the Big Ten tournament because of their non conference schedule and RPI i doubt that they would get an NCAA at large bid.That would be too bad! Playing the likes of lower tier D 1 schools such as Chicago State[a joke],Hartford, Lemoyne, Central Connecticut, Morehead State[another joke], Western Illinois, IPFW[rained out],Cleveland State, Austin Peay,and Valparaiso does them not good whether they win and kills them if they lose. Plus i think we played to those teams levels and did us more harm than good.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think it's more about the record than the schedule and RPI but obviously the record influences the RPI. We should have beaten those teams early in the season and couldn't make it happen. As of early Sunday before our final win of the series, our RPI was 129. If we can keep sweeping the weekend series, we could still have an outside chance of an at large bid because sometimes they account more heavily on wins near the end of the year but the most important thing now is probably to get a good seed going into the Big Ten tourney.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Who should they play in the middle of the week?

    Illinois beat LSU 2/3 at LSU

    Cent Con St beat IU 1/1

    Cent Con St beat Illinois 2/3 in FL

    IU beat Illinois 2/3 at Illinois

    go figure...

    Record means alot if you're a southern team - not so much if you're above the Mason Dixon line...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Maybe better spring trip schedule would help the RPI. Play FSU, Florida, Florida International, Central Florida when in Florida rather than Hartford, Central Connecticut,Bowling Green,Jacksonville st. etc.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hoosiers have done that with season openers - FSU, Miami, LSU

    ReplyDelete
  8. OSU has an RPI of 22, they are 26-6 with a strength of schedule of 106. IU has an RPI of 120, we are 16-17 with a SOS of 92. We lost at least 7 games early we should have one. If we were 23-10 we would have an RPI of 25 or lower. We just did not get er done early. Finish strong

    ReplyDelete
  9. Win and increase RPI. Doesn't matter who we play, we need to win. That's all we can control. We just didn't win early and now we have to pick it up and get some big sweeps like we did with iowa.

    ReplyDelete
  10. 21 regular season games left...I think we win 15 and finish 31-23 (17-6 in conference). Any other predictions?

    ReplyDelete