Lots to unpack as the Hoosiers prepare for conference play
By Carl James @jovian34 March 1st, 2026
Indiana Hoosiers: 3, Western Kentucky Hilltoppers 1
Inning by inning details in the Live Game Blog | Box Score
BOWLING GREEN, KY – Two very different games took place on Saturday. A Indiana leveraged three arms in a classic pitchers duel, then just failed to complete a comeback attempt in a modern college shootout. There were concerns and bright spots in both games.
The pitching in Game 1 was outstanding. It had to be, in part, because Indiana again struggled to score runs, and there is no way to sugar coat it – the defense was atrocious. First baseman Jake Hanley, who was a gold glove finalist with no errors as a freshman first baseman was charged an error by not catching a pick-off attempt. He was spared another error as the routine catch he missed in the same inning was on the back half of a double play. After both games coach Mercer told iubase-dot-com that Hanley, “had some uncharacteristic defensive miscues.”
Indiana chalked up three errors, but the pitching did not allow any of those errors to turn into unearned runs. In fact the only run the Hoosier pitchers allowed was a solo homer. Starter Brayton Thomas went 4.2 innings, allowing that one run, striking out 4, only walking 2, allowing two hits. Gavin Seebold got Thomas out of a fifth inning jam and then put up three zeros of his own with only 2 hits allowed. Jackson Yarberry shut the door with a 1-2-3 inning in the 9th for a save.
Offensively, DH Brayden Ricketts paced the Hoosiers with three hits and an RBI. Hanley and left fielder Caleb Koskie each added a pair of hits to the effort. Indiana out-hit Western Kentucky 10 to 4 in the first game.
Indiana Hoosiers: 12, Western Kentucky Hilltoppers 14
Inning by inning details in the Live Game Blog | Box Score
The second game was different animal. 4-game series are not the norm for most college baseball teams, but Western Kentucky plays them throughout the non-conference portion of their schedule. With the massive annual turnover that has become the norm for Indiana baseball, pitching depth problems often come along with that.
Indiana opened with grad student Reagan Rivera. Rivera is one of the most talented arms in the transfer class. The stuff is real, low to mid-90s fastball with several decent secondary pitches. The stuff looked decent to me Saturday as I sat in the front row behind home plate. The velocity was good, he got a couple of whiffs when the off-speed hit the zone, but the command of the secondary pitches was sporadic and Hilltopper hitters just seemed to have his number. It took six batters to record an out. 4 scored in the first inning alone. He loaded the bases with no outs to start the second and forced the coaching staff to make a change.
Senior Pete Haas comes on. Haas is the veteran innings eater. He is usually dutiful at managing a game and mixing up pitches enough to get outs, but not someone who is typically going to shut down a lineup. He was masterful in the second inning, escaping the jam allowing only one run. Haas just couldn’t keep WKU off the scoreboard allowing two runs in the third inning.
Down 7-1, knowing your best remaining pitching options are being held back for Sunday’s finale, the 2025 Hoosiers would have folded. We saw this so many times. Despite having the B1G’s most potent offense, facing mid-major pitching, the game would go from bad to worse. The 2026 team did something different. They fought back.
Hogan Denny rips a home run to left and Hanley gets on with a single. Caleb Koskie drives in two runs. The order flips and Ayden Crouse also drives in a run. Indiana makes it a 2-run game.
WKU punched right back. Haas was out of gas. Then the Hoosiers tried to get as much out of every arm as they could which meant pushing guys beyond their limits leading to command issues and a lot of free bases. Freshman Kellen English, the tall, lanky righty was all of the place with his downhill fastball, although he had better command of the secondary stuff. Without the fastball consistently in the zone though, which was sitting 95-96, he couldn’t keep runners off the bases and allowed 4 more Hilltoppers to score, ballooning the lead again.
Mizzou transfer RHP Kaden Jacobi finally calmed things down on the mound for Indiana. Then Freshman Ivan Mastalski pitched two scoreless frames and was downright electric as the Hoosier offense roared back again. Mastalski was tossing with 10 ticks left on the pitch clock, filling up the zone, and getting outs.
The offensive highlight of the day was Jake Hanley crushing a ball over the trees beyond right field for a three-run homer. The momentum was in IU’s directions, but they just ran out of outs. Freshman Davian Carerra pinch hit for TJ Schuyler in the ninth and made the last out of the game.
Mercer said he told his team afterwards that, “I just want to get on the backside of fear. I want to get on the backside of being worried about the end of it. I just want to compete.”
Season Analysis for February
The results have not been there in February for this Indiana Hoosiers baseball team. Splitting the doubleheader at Western Kentucky Saturday brings the month, current non-conference, and current season records to a rough 4-7, well below the expected standards for the program.
We need to fully acknowledge that the toughness of the schedule has something to do with that. 4 of those losses came to top-10 teams that have very good chances to compete for a national championship this season (UNC and LSU). That being said, the B1G as a group has faced tough competition and managed to win several big games. That is not exclusive to the west coast either. Michigan State took a series from a ranked Louisville team. Michigan and Purdue have put up some impressive wins in early season power tournaments.
Coach Mercer isn’t trying to game the system for RPI points with this tough schedule. He has been clear he is trying to toughen his mostly young (save several key veteran pitchers) players to compete at the highest level of the sport. “That was the whole point of going to play in this schedule, was just to get tougher and meaner, and more competitive and stop worrying about winning and losing, per se.” He went on to state the goal as, “we got to be better when we go to Nebraska and to Iowa and go to Oregon and go to UCLA. We want to compete. We want to win. And to do that you have to be tough and you have to be mean. You have to be not worried about making mistakes.”
In RPI terms IU is 4.3 wins and 5.5 losses (due to road adjustments) on a portion of the schedule that I am confident will prove to be among the most difficult in the country at years end. If Indiana can turn around the losing soon, the RPI damage is not bad at all. Last year’s struggles against less competition were a bigger problem.
RPI alone is not enough. There has to be a proven record of beating good teams. The problem that remains is that February may have included the majority of the opportunities for marquee wins and all of those have passed the Hoosiers by. The possible future opportunities are at Vanderbilt and Louisville and a series at Oregon (less than two weeks) and Nebraska.