Pair of Hilltopper righties keep Hoosier bats quiet
By Carl James @jovian34 February 27th, 2026
Indiana Hoosiers: 1, Western Kentucky Hilltoppers 4
Inning by inning details in the Live Game Blog | Box Score
After a promising road midweek win over a very good Xavier team, the Hoosiers turned to staff ace Tony Neubeck for the third straight Friday. Neubeck has been excellent all month, but today he added that last piece to the starting pitching mix: he got into the 6th inning. 5.1 innings of 1-run baseball was very impressive. The only damage came in the middle of his outing when he gave up back-to-back doubles.
Indiana’s bullpen held until a mix of issues in the 8th inning allowed three Hilltoppers to score. The big problem was that Indiana failed to score a run until the top of the 9th inning. Starter Gavin Perry had five strikeouts before the third inning. The Hoosier finally got something going in the fourth inning when a pair of hits and a walk loaded the bases with one out. Freshman Landen Fry smoked a ball right into an infielders glove and Jake Hanley got doubled off to end the inning.
The Hoosiers had another threat in the sixth when Perry ran out of gas. Will Moore was on first base when Ricketts smoked a ball and 1-hoped the right field wall. Moore was so close to first that he didn’t try to reach third when both should have easily been in scoring position. A pitching change brought in righty Mick Uebelhor. With the force play still open, Denny grounded into 1-5-3 double play. A flyout ended the frame. At the very least better baserunning position would have allowed for a sacrifice fly, if not significantly more. The double plays were killer in the contest.
Uebelhor retired 11 straight Hoosiers pushing a shutout to two outs in the 9th inning.
Western Kentucky plated three on a series of free passes including an intentional walk to setup a potential double play and a bases loaded hit-by-pitch that the umpire called a strike but somehow was allowed to review and awarded WKU the baserunner and another run.
Ricketts and Hanley paced the Hoosiers with two hits apiece. Hanley was driven in by Cooper Malamazian and pinch hitter freshman Owen ten Oever represented the tying run before grounding to out to end the game.
At 3-6 so far on the season now the non-conference part of the season is not looking great. Indiana gets three more cracks at WKU with a double header Saturday at 2pm and a series finale on Sunday. Then the Hoosiers come for a midweek and open up Big Ten play with the one team in the league struggling worse in non-conference play than they are, the Washington Huskies.
Up and down, like so many losses this season, the Hoosiers were one or two plays away from completely flipping the script, but the close ones have all gone the other way. Can everything go in the right direction tomorrow? Chris Feeny and I will be on-site in Bowling Green for Saturday’s action.