Indiana commits three errors on way to 1-run loss Friday
By Carl James @jovian34 March 28th, 2026
Indiana Hoosiers: 5, Nebraska Cornhuskers 6
Inning by inning details in the Live Game Blog | Box Score
The second inning on Friday in Lincoln showed the disparity between the two baseball teams. In the top of the inning, Nebraska third baseman Joshua Overbeek committed an error that allowed Cole Decker to reach base. Decker would end the frame in scoring position. In the bottom of the inning with two outs, Will Moore committed an error and that base runner would score on a home run.
The third out in an inning has often been a difficult out for Indiana pitching and defense to get. That being said, Indiana pitching only allowed three earned runs on Friday night while offense put up five. But the unearned runs count and the Hoosiers have now fallen to 3-7 in Big Ten play and sit alone in 12th place, the final qualifying spot for the Big Ten Tournament.
For two weeks in a row the Hoosiers have shown a new capability on offense. After four to five innings of struggle against a very talented weekend arm, they figure a way to break through. In top of the 6th inning, Caleb Koskie and Cooper Malamazian lead the inning off with singles. A wild pitch scores Koskie and pinch hitter Owen ten Oever gets a huge RBI single. Hogan Denny then gets a big hit to plate two more runs and cut what was a five-run Husker lead to one run.
It was a similar story to last Saturday against Minnesota, but a counter to the narrative up to that point that the Indiana offense is good at jumping on starting pitching, but unable to perform as adjustments are made or relivers are brought in. After giving up a run in the bottom, the Hoosiers scored again in the seventh.
The Hoosiers kept on battling but couldn’t cut into the lead and dropped yet another one-run contest. They have now lost six such contests, four of those to teams currently ranked in D1Baseball’s top-25.
The really good news is that, unlike the one-run Friday opener at Oregon, Indiana did not end up using bullpen ace Gavin Seebold, which allows him to be paired with one of the remaining Hoosier lefty starters to get a ranked road win this weekend in the series.
The other good news is that Reagan Rivera was able to stay in this Friday start for 97 pitches. He struck out 20% of the batters he faced and touch 98mph on the gun at one point. The errors contributed to only 2 of his 5 runs allowed being earned, granted one of those was a home run. This gives the coaching staff a big question about next Friday. Do they stick with Rivera, or shuffle to Conner Linn who has looked great in his past two midweek starts?
I did want to highlight a moment that stuck with me. In the top of the 8th, freshman Mateo Noto sliced a liner toward left centerfield that was caught by Husker shortstop Dylan Carey. The opposite field contact was solid and Noto was just unlucky it did not produce a hit. As Noto walked back to the dugout, Hogan Denny grabbed Noto and clearly made him know that Noto did his job, despite the out. Coach Mercer fist bumped Noto.
Backing out to thirty thousand feet – every plate appearance Friday by a Hoosier was by a freshman or a sophomore and they outhit a top-25 team throwing a bona fide ace, while the Hoosiers countered with a spot starter with a 10+ ERA. While the Huskers held on, this Hoosier team is learning how to play competitive baseball. Just when they seem to be figuring things out at the plate though, the defense that had been such a strength in league play, got sloppy. To me, this is very much a sign of youth.
There was another team two years ago that had a very young but talented position core. That team went 19-33 in the final year of the Pac-12. Today they are the undisputed no 1 team in the country and 10-0 leading the Big Ten. I am not saying that Indiana is UCLA. Indiana is relying on a lot of graduate student pitching, but the prospect of how this group will improve over the next year to me means there is huge potential for this group to do something special. And the development of freshman pitcher Ivan Mastalski shows that Indiana has made strides in getting a better foundation so that the portal won’t have to be called upon quite as heavy in building a pitching staff to support these position players in 2027.