Chris, Carl, Cass, and Zach discuss Indiana’s 0-4 week and where to go at the halfway point of the season.
By Carl James @jovian34 March 30th, 2026
There is no good way to sugarcoat the past week. Indiana went 0-4 with a home loss to Indiana State and a road sweep at the hands of now number 19 Nebraska.
Indiana State used nine pitchers Tuesday. Only one of those threw more than an inning. Indiana got a 3 inning, no run, one hit start out of Conner Linn. Reagan Rivera had a clean inning of relief, striking out two batters. In all, Indiana pitching gave up just three earned runs on the day, but a throwing error and the offense not capitalizing on opportunities lead to a 5-4 loss in the non-conference midweek matchup.
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 Friday at Nebraska, 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. The Hoosiers kept on battling but couldn’t cut into the lead and dropped yet another one-run contest, 6-5. They have now lost six such contests, four of those to teams currently ranked in D1Baseball’s top-25.
The Hoosiers got life in the top of the sixth inning Saturday. As had been a common refrain of late, talented right-hander Carson Jasa was dominating Hoosier hitters, racking up 10 strikeouts. Brayden Ricketts was already on base from a one-out walk when Cole Decker singled to right field to get two runners on and head coach Jeff Mercer pinch hit freshman Owen ten Oever in place of Mateo Noto. ten Oever crushed a three-run bomb to left center and suddenly the Hoosiers were only down by two runs. After Will Moore was unable to stop a hard-hit ball from getting to left field and Landen Fry threw to an empty second base on a ground ball, Jackson Yarberry allowed a 3-run homer and the Hoosiers dropped the game 12-7.
The Hoosiers jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on Sunday against former Hoosier Cooper Katskee, but left the bases loaded. Indiana let Katskee breathe, and he turned back into the guy he’s been most of this season. The only other damage Indiana would put on him was a Fry solo home run that tied the game in the sixth after Nebraska had taken a lead. Nebraska ran away with the game in a maddening 8-run 7th inning, to seal the sweep 12-4.
The Hoosiers drop to 10-17 on the season, and 3-9 in Big Ten play, in 15th place. The whole week was a disaster for Indiana defensively after a great start in the first three weeks of league play. Every starting infielder (five with the different lineups) had an error on the weekend.
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