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Indiana baseball lands in Perfect Game’s top 25 poll

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The Indiana baseball program sneaks into the Perfect Game's top 25 rankings after another series win over the weekend. (Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen-USA TODAY NETWORK)

The Indiana baseball program has landed in Perfect Game’s top 25 rankings this week. The Hoosiers won two of three games against Iowa this weekend moving them to No. 24 in the latest poll.

Indiana baseball moves to 22-10 overall and 7-2 in Big Ten play. Currently, Indiana is atop the Big Ten standings and are the only program from the conference ranked in the top 25.

This weekend’s series win was the fifth straight weekend series win for the Hoosiers and the third in Big Ten play.

The Hoosiers are now 17-1 at home in 2023 and have won 15-straight. That is the second-longest home streak in program history.

Part of the success for Indiana this season has been its pitching staff — something head coach Jeff Mercer preached heading into this season.

“The focal point that we’ve we’ve really tried to institute in the last couple years and we’ve talked about is the ability to pitch and play great defense,” Mercer said over the weekend.

The Hoosiers rank second in the Big Ten with a 4.51 era and third in opposing batting average at just .245.

Indiana baseball faces Ball State at home on Tuesday before traveling to Illinois this upcoming weekend.

SEE ALSO: Transfer commit Kel’el Ware has ‘all of the tools’ to be successful at Indiana

Follow Hoosier Illustrated on Twitter @Indiana_FRN to stay up to date on all of the news, updates and coverage of Indiana University athletics. 

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Indiana baseball bows out of Big Ten Tournament, await NCAA seeding

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The Indiana baseball program bows out of the Big Ten Tournament and will now wait to hear its name called for the NCAA Tournament. (Joseph Cress/Iowa City Press-Citizen-USA TODAY NETWORK)

The Indiana baseball program now waits. Following back-to-back losses in the Big Ten Tournament, the Hoosiers are now in wait-and-see mode until the NCAA Selection.

The NCAA will announce the tournament field on Monday but until then, Indiana will have a few days to prepare to hear its name called.

As of Sunday, the Indiana baseball program is slated to be in the tournament field. It is projected as a 3-seed in the Terre Haute region. The Hoosiers would play Tennessee in the first round.

The 1-seed in that region is Indiana State while the 4-seed is Wright State.

The Hoosiers finished the season 41-18 overall and 16-8 in the Big Ten. Going into the last weekend of the regular season, Indiana was tied atop the Big Ten. After a bit of a slip up, it finished second in the conference.

It was the first time since 2013 that Indiana reached 40 wins in the regular season and first since 2018 to hit the mark at all.

It was the ninth time in Indiana baseball program history to hit the 40-win mark.

“We’ve done the things we needed to do,” IU head coach Jeff Mercer said heading into the Big Ten Tournament. “We control our own destiny. We put ourselves in position to play in the (NCAA tourney).”

The Hoosiers won their first matchup in the Big Ten Tournament against Illinois before falling to Iowa and Michigan to bow out.

This year will be the first NCAA Tournament since 2019 for the Hoosiers.

SEE ALSO: Indiana Baseball: Devin Taylor highlights All-Big Ten awards for Hoosiers, six total honored

Make sure to follow Hoosier Illustrated on Twitter @Indiana_FRN and YouTube to stay up to date on all of the news, updates and coverage of Indiana University athletics. 

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Indiana Baseball: Devin Taylor highlights All-Big Ten awards for Hoosiers, six total honored

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Devin Taylor highlighted the postseason awards for the Indiana baseball program as six total Hoosiers were honored. (Devin Taylor / Indiana Athletics)

The Indiana baseball program reached a milestone this year that it hadn’t done in the regular season in a decade. On top of that, numerous players received All-Big Ten honors heading into postseason play.

After reaching the 40-win regular season mark for the first time since 2013, Indiana heads into the Big Ten Tournament as the 2-seed. A large reason for the success has been due to freshman Devin Taylor. On Tuesday, he received the Big Ten Freshman of the Year award.

Taylor’s numbers this season were tremendous. He led all Big Ten freshmen in batting average (.328), OPS (1.146), runs scored (58), home runs (16), RBIs (56), total bases (121), slugging percentage (.695), walks (34) and on-base percentage (.451). His 16 home runs this year rank third all-time by all Big Ten freshman.

Taylor was also named to the All-Big Ten First Team.

The other member of the All-Big Ten First Team is sophomore relief pitcher Ryan Kraft. Kraft led all Big Ten pitchers in ERA (2.51) this year in 19 appearances and 57.1 innings of work.

He had 49 strikeouts and was 6-1 on the season. He also had five saves.

On the All-Big Ten Second Team were Phillip Glasser, Luke Sinnard and Brock Tibbits.

Glasser started the year off with a bang, reaching base in the first 45 games of the season. He had a .350 batting average and team-best 83 hits to go with 63 runs scored.

Sinnard led the Big Ten in strikeouts with 104, including three games with 10+ strikeouts. He had a 4.48 era in 78.1 innings pitched. Sinnard finished the season 11-3.

He needs five more strikeouts to set the Indiana single-season program strikeout record.

Rounding out the second team was Tibbits. He had a .387 batting average and finished with 10 homers and 64 RBIs.

Sophomore Josh Pyne was the lone representative for the Indiana baseball program on the Third Team. He finished the year with a.311 batting average and five home runs and 51 RBIs.

Tyler Cerny was also on the All-Big Ten Freshman Team. 

The Indiana baseball program begins its Big Ten Tournament on Tuesday.

SEE ALSO: Five thoughts on transfer portal activity for Indiana basketball following portal deadline

Make sure to follow Hoosier Illustrated on Twitter @Indiana_FRN and YouTube to stay up to date on all of the news, updates and coverage of Indiana University athletics. 

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Indiana baseball reaches 40-win mark, secures 2-seed in B1G Tournament

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Indiana Hoosiers players huddle up before a NCAA Big Ten Conference baseball game against Iowa, Thursday, May 19, 2022, at Duane Banks Field in Iowa City, Iowa.

For the first time since 2013, Indiana baseball posted its first 40-win regular season with the Hoosiers’ 6-5 victory over Michigan State on Saturday. The last time Indiana won 40 games overall was in 2018 with 37 of them coming in the regular season.

This is only the ninth time in program history that the Indiana baseball program has posted a 40-win season.

Not only did the win over the Spartans get Indiana to achieve that mark, it also secured a second place finish in the conference standings as well. Now, Indiana heads into the Big Ten Tournament as the No. 2 overall seed.

Going into the Michigan State series, Indiana baseball head coach Jeff Mercer knew exactly the opportunity the Hoosiers had in front of them.

“We’ve done the things we needed to do,” Mercer said. “We control our own destiny. We put ourselves in position to play in the (NCAA tourney).”

The Spartans would have the opening score for the first time over the weekend with a single run in the first inning. The Hoosiers when then go onto tie it up in the third inning before scoring twice in the fifth inning, once in the sixth, and twice in the eighth inning.

Michigan State only added single runs in the fifth and sixth as well as two runs in the ninth.

Freshman star out fielder Devin Taylor would post his fourth multi-home run game of the season, which is his third time doing so in the Big Ten. He would move into No. 3 on the all-time Big Ten freshman home run charts.

Indiana baseball will now turn their focus to the Big Ten Tournament, which begins on Tuesday (May 23rd) at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska.

The No. 2-seed Indiana will start play at 2 p.m. The Hoosiers finish the regular season 16-8 in the conference, 40-16 overall.

SEE ALSO: Indiana Football: Tom Allen dips in latest CBS Sports’ 2023 coaching rankings

Make sure to follow Hoosier Illustrated on Twitter @Indiana_FRN and YouTube to stay up to date on all of the news, updates and coverage of Indiana University athletics. 

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