Hoosiers outhit Rebels on Friday, but UNLV got one timely hit to come out on top
By Carl James @jovian34 February 15th, 2025
In a game that was generally well pitched and defended on both sides, the difference was a starkly contrasted first inning. UNLV’s sophomore righty Carson Lane had a lot of freshman experience, despite poor results. Their coaching staff had stressed both improved velocity and off-speed command. He had both of those on display in a first inning where he struck out consensus pre-season All-American Devin Taylor on three pitches and proceeded to attack both sides of the plate with a mid 90’s fastball and set down freshman Hogan Denny and junior Tyler Cerny on strikes as well.
Then came the bottom of the first inning…
Indiana Hoosiers 2, UNLV Rebels 4
Inning by inning details in the Live Game Blog | Box Score
This is one of those times where looking at a scorecard versus watching the game tell very different stories. Southern Indiana transfer Gavin Seebold arguably threw only one bad pitch in an inning that looked like he got completely shelled on the scorecard. He did his job of inducing weak contact. The first batters hit the ball on the ground in the infield, finding holes for singles. Then a shallow outfield pop-up fell out of the glove of a charging and sliding Hogan Denny, loading the bases with no outs.
In his first Division I at bat, UNLV’s Dean Toigo took an elevated off-speed pitch over the right field fence, and all of a sudden the Hoosiers were down 4-0 without having recorded an out. There is little doubt, that pitch was a mistake.
At this point, Seebold’s line was 0.0 IP, 4 ER, 4 H. From that point on… he went 4.0 IP, 0 ER, 1 H, 1 BB, 3 K. And he stayed under 70 pitches total, meaning that when more worked up, he should be able to go quite deep into games. Seebold went back to work and put on a pitching clinic collecting a dozen outs.
Graduate Student Drew Buhr took the next four innings, looking just like the pitcher we remember from late spring. 4.0 innings of scoreless two-hit baseball. Seebold’s one walk, which came in an unfavorable match-up with first open and two outs, was the only free pass of the day by Hoosier pitching.
Offensively the Hooosiers finally got to Lane a bit in the fifth inning. They managed 5 hits and a run against the starter. Two rallies were killed by double plays as the UNLV defense (especially in the infield) looked really good. UNLV’s one error was off of an errant pick-off throw, which, while allowing a run, also set-up a key rally-killing out on the basepaths when Korbyn Dickerson got thrown out at third base with one out.
The Hoosiers lead off the majority of their innings with a baserunner, but hitting only 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position, just weren’t productive enough to get the win. Taylor and Dickerson both had two hits a piece, but Taylor also lead the Hoosiers with three strikeouts, the last stranding Dickerson in scoring position after the Hoosiers only extra base hit of the day.
What did we learn?
Gavin Seebold is a legit starting pitcher for the Hoosiers. The past few years have seen transfers and young relievers take this mantle on opening day and quickly become a non-factor. It was a little scarry after the first four batters, but Seebold calming the situation and getting through the fourth inning with no further damage on a low pitch count was a lot more telling to me than what happended early. Was his stuff elite? No. But we knew that going in. Seebold is a bulldog with a 4-pitch mix that will battle to give this potent Indiana offense an opportunity to win baseball games, and save innings for later in a series.
Offensively this team is deep and head coach Jeff Mercer isn’t going to hesitate to use that depth to get favorable match-up opportunities. The most notable was when Andrew Wiggins pinch hit for Josh Pyne in sixth inning. The UNLV pitcher at the time was Will Marquart, a junk tossing righty. Wiggins grounded out, but the match-up was exactly up his alley. Part of why this was possible was freshman Cooper Malamazian who took over at third base and ended up making the defensive gem of the day for the Hoosiers. The final pinch hit was Tyler DeMartino in the ninth for Malamazian. The veteran Xavier transfer outfielder has a lot of experience and pop in the bat. The order was for a game-tying home run. DeMartino went down on strikes, but the strategy seemed sound. I think we will come to see a lot of this given the quality of the bats beyond the starting lineup.
Indiana faces DeMartino’s former Xavier team today at 7pm. We will have the live blog going for that one as well.