Seebold, Kraft, and Vogel pound the zone to hold Spartan bats at bay
By Carl James @jovian34 April 7th, 2025
“The difference in the game was that we focused on our approaches.”
— Head Coach Jeff Mercer
Indiana Hoosiers 6, Michigan State Spartans 4
Inning by inning details in the Live Game Blog | Box Score | Postgame Media
With the start of the series delayed by two days, Indiana hitters had extra time to prepare for one of the B1G’s elite arms in left-hander Joseph Dzierwa. In total Indiana put up a complete game with careful plate approaches, pitchers attacking the strike zone, and the defense making big plays.
Coach Mercer’s favorite example from the hitting was the work of Freshman shortstop Cooper Malamazian. “Cooper had the quintessential day of at bats for us where he got into good counts, he took some strikes that were out of his three ball or out of his five ball and worked, and just had a tremendous day.”
Devin Taylor lead the hitters with three singles from the lead-off spot. Mercer explained that Andrew Wiggins reported a problem with his foot Sunday and was held out of the lineup as a precaution. Hogan Denny played right field and Mercer re-stacked the batting order so it was mostly alternating left and right handers. Three freshman, including Malamazian, Jake Hanley, and Will Moore also had multi-hit days.
Pitching coach Dustin Glant used three arms on the day. Gavin Seebold earned the win with a solid 5 inning, 2 run performance. After the game senior lefty Ryan Kraft reflected on the starter, “Gavin did awesome he filled the zone up he kind of set a path for the rest of the bullpen he was able to land multiple pitches for strikes.” Kraft pitched two and redshirt sophomore Jacob Vogel earned the save pitching the final two innings. All three got ahead of the Spartan hitters who, as Coach Mercer explained, “they foul fastballs off but they don’t swing and miss off speed pitches and so that’s tough.” Spartan hitters dug into a lot of 2-strike counts and the Hoosier pitchers just kept filling up the zone until something was put in play, usually weak contact that was playable for outs.
The win moves into sole possession of the 8th spot in the B1G standings at 7-6. The series will be decided Monday at noon with a double header. Indiana needs only to split the double header to win the series, but can gain some more ground in the standings with a sweep.