There were some serious silver linings in the dark cloud that was the opening weekend results
By Carl James @jovian34 February 15th, 2026
“[In Saturday’s finale] we executed all the way accross the board. And then we didn’t make a play at the end of the end of the game to secure the win. But you come back, you bounce back, you put the go ahead run on there in the top of the last inning.”
–Head Coach Jeff Mercer
12pm: Indiana Hoosiers 2, no. 11 North Carolina Tar Heels 12 (7 innings)
Inning by inning details in the Live Game Blog | Box Score
3:42pm: Indiana Hoosiers 3, no. 11 North Carolina Tar Heels 4 (11 innings)
Inning by inning details in the Live Game Blog | Box Score
Indiana Baseball scheduled bold right out of the gate, traveling to no. 11 North Carolina, a team with an extremely deep pitching staff for a weekend series. In the series preview, head coach Jeff Mercer said that he wanted his team to play good baseball, improve over the course of the weekend, and get a better idea on the right pitching roles.
Indiana’s best game was the third and the plate appraches on Saturday seemed better than Friday, but still didn’t produce results in the way of run’s as the best opportunity was ended by a hard hit liner getting caught for a double play in the early game Saturday. But given the Hoosiers were so close to winning game three, it’s not a bold take to say they were better, in general, in game 3.
I obviously can’t rate the baseball played as “good”. All aspects of the game had some bright spots, but the two snowball 6th innings that buried the Hoosiers on Friday and early Saturday had contributions from poor position player play and struggles on the mound by bullpen arms. The pitcher hit-by-pitches in advantageous counts and wild pitches with runners on third were costly. And then there was the experienced infield that had problems all weekend, including multiple uncharacteristic errors by Cooper Malamazian at shortstop, the throwing struggles of Aiden Stewart at second base, including the throw that should have clinched a Hoosier win late Saturday, and the infielder group’s failure to call off the pitcher on a sky high pop-up he should not have been required to attempt a play on. The outfield had Cole Decker losing a routine fly in the twilight on Friday.
How costly was the loss? I just can’t say yet. Might we look back in mid-May still fretting that IU missed an opportunity to get a marquee win in one of it’s best opportunities? I think this is very likely. It’s also possible that the Hoosiers captilize on other opportunities making it less important. It’s also possible the issues that lead to the three losses will cost too many losses this season to matter. It’s also possible (though I think very doubtful) North Carolina suffers injuries or otherwise struggles in ACC play and turns out to not be so marquee after all.
As for coach Mercer’s third criteria: get a better idea of the pitching roles, the weekend was very fruitful. Despite being limited in pitch count this early in the season, the weekend demonstrated a promise this program hasn’t delivered on in the past four seasons: the Hoosiers may have a genuine weekend rotation of starting pitching. UNC scored a combined 2 runs in the first four innings of every game this weekend. Then there were multiple gems out of the bullpen, including Michael Sarhatt on Friday and a fantastic deep outing by Gavin Seebold late Saturday.
The pitchers that struggled saw issues balloon in part due to defensive woes. That being said, they allowed too many free passes. Unlike in early season recent years, the command issues were not as exaggerated. Coach Mercer said, “You’re playing straight up baseball: on the white is a strike, off the white is a ball. They’re competitive misses.” North Carolina batters did not chase and missing by inches is still missing, even if a Big Ten umpire would have called more strikes. The overall point is, the pitchers who struggled are a few tweaks away from getting back in the zone and the stuff they have should be good enough to stack up outs in the near future.
The bats came through the fire, improved approaches thorugh the weekend, and scored what should have been enough runs to win the finale. This may be the toughest top to bottom pitching staff that they will face in a series all year. The Hoosiers rarely looked over-matched, but produced too much weak contact to take advantage of a decent number of base runners.
In total, it looks like the pitching and hitting are not quite there yet, but may very well be close to being what we expect of a good Indiana baseball team. The middle infield is clearly struggling and significant imporvements are needed there as Indiana must not give opponents extra outs to play with or we will see more of the big innings that doomed IU this weekend.