Tibbitts hits two bombs to pace the Indiana 15-2 route of RedHawks
by Garrod Creech • @creech_garrod • March 1st, 2022
Hoosier bats were booming at Bart Kaufman Stadium throughout the IU Baseball team’s home opener on Monday.
In front of an opening day record 1,984 fans, Indiana trounced the visiting Miami (Ohio) RedHawks 15-2, earning their second win of the season by leaning on the long ball and solid outings by five IU pitchers. The Hoosiers homered four times on the day, but 2 of the blasts came off the bat of Brock Tibbitts. Every Hoosier who stepped into the batter’s box reached base at least once.
Freshman and Bloomington native Luke Hayden started the game for the Hoosiers. He got into some trouble early, issuing three walks and allowing 4 base runners in his two innings of work, but Hayden battled, and the Hoosiers escaped jams in the 1st and 2nd unscathed. This would be a reoccurring theme for the RedHawks, who left 10 runners stranded over the course of the game. After the game, Hayden said about those situations “my mindset doesn’t change all that much”, and that “[pitching coach Dustin] Glant preaches, ‘attack, attack, attack.’ “
In the bottom of the second inning, the Hoosiers started making some noise against Miami (Ohio) starter Colin Czajowski. After a leadoff walk to Matthew Ellis and Morgan Colopy single past second base, Brock Tibbitts got Indiana on the board with an opposite-field shot that just cleared the right-field fence. Josh Pyne singled on the very next pitch, Carter Mathison walked, and today’s DH Kip Fougerousse hit a bomb of his own to deep center field, giving the Hoosier’s an early 6-0 lead going heading into the third.
From there, lefty Ryan Kraft took over for the Hoosiers on the mound. He walked the lead-off guy and gave up a double right after but ultimately limited the damage. Kraft went 2 innings, allowing two hits and one run while striking out three. Head Coach Jeff Mercer credited his pitching coach on how he trains the pitchers to deal in these situations. “Dustin does a great job with our training environment.”
Josh Pyne tacked on to the Hoosier lead with an RBI ground ball in the bottom of the third inning, but in the fourth, the home team erupted again. Tyler Doanes walked, Bobby Whalen stayed hot with a warning track triple, and Matthew Ellis hit a towering home run to right to make it 10-1 Hoosiers.
Braydon Tucker relieved Kraft in the fifth and gave up a run on a bases-loaded wild pitch, but that would be the last RedHawk to score the evening. Another Brock Tibbitts homer to deep left, arguably the most impressive hit of the night, in the bottom of the fifth brought the lead back to nine. Tibbitts reflected, “It was a solid pitch, came in, put a good swing on, and from there… watched it fly a little bit and then a party started in the dugout.”
Grant Holderfield (two innings, no hits and four Ks) and Bradley Brehmer (one inning, no hits and three Ks) closed out a very encouraging performance from the IU pitching staff. They walked 8 batters, but the group only gave up 4 hits and had 16 strikeouts.
The win improves Indiana’s record to 2-5 on the year. The Hoosiers will be back in action again Friday at 4pm ET when they head to Springfield, Missouri to take on Missouri State in a 3 game weekend series.