Gilley and Grable shove, Taylor and Cerny provide the pop
By Carl James @jovian34 May 17th, 2025
“An incredibly gutsy performance from both Cole [Gilley] and Ben Grable.”
— Head Coach Jeff Mercer
Indiana Hoosiers 8, Michigan Wolverines 1
Inning by inning details in the Live Game Blog | Box Score
ANN ARBOR, MI – Indiana dominated Michigan on Friday night both on the mound and at the plate. Cole Gilley put in his second quality start within a 5-day span, allowing just 1 run and three hits in six innings of work. Ben Grable then shut the door with a 9-out save, retiring every batter he faced.
After the game, head coach Jeff Mercer said that, “all of the pitches were working for [Gilley], even the change-up.” Gilley had two outings where he was struggling to locate his cutter and hadn’t been using a change-up. Mercer stressed that Gilley was executing his fastball location very well that setup his cutter and slider. When Gilley has his full arsenal, he is one of the best pitchers in the conference. Michigan’s offense is very good and that just couldn’t get much done at the plate Friday night.
Tyler Cerny got the offense going with a towering home run to kick off the third inning. With two on, Devin Taylor then stepped up later in the same frame and just crushed an elevated off-speed pitch well over the scoreboard in right field hitting the roof of the next building. “His bat speed was good, aggressive. Really trying to let it go, so he was outstanding.”
Cerny lead the offense with 3 hits on the day in total, helping Indiana extend the lead to seven runs in the sixth inning. At that point, pitching duties were handed to Ben Grable who was firing heat up to 96 miles per hour at times. He mixed his pitches up well in three dominant 1-2-3 innings that earned him the 9-out save (his first of the season).
Indiana is now in 6th place in the B1G standings with a 1-game lead on Michigan and now holding the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Wolverines with a clinched series win. Unfortunately for the Hoosiers, if Michigan wins Saturday and Rutgers completes a sweep of Maryland, Rutgers enters a three-way tie and the Hoosiers will drop to the 8-seed in next week’s B1G Tournament. Indiana can avoid that fate with a win on Saturday.