Indiana baseball uses quick start and strong finish to move past Southern Miss in NCAA Tournament opener

After sweating it out on selection Monday, Indiana baseball dominated its NCAA Tournament opener against Southern Miss with a 10-4 win.

Indian came into postseason play with some of the best and most consistent bats in the country. That was no different on Friday as it got the scoring started with two runs in the first inning and then three in the second, jumping out to a quick 5-0 lead.

Every Hoosier eventually reached base en route to 17 total hits. Brock Tibbitts — who got the scoring started in the first — had three hits and four RBIs. Morgan Colopy also added two hits and three RBIs. Five players had multi-hit games.

IU’s 17 hits were the most in program history in an NCAA Tournament game.

After adding three more runs in the fourth and fifth innings to stretch its lead to eight, the first real jam came for Indiana’s defense. Ty Bothwell — who had thrown nearly 200 career innings — had pitched a terrific game heading into the sixth inning before giving up two runs on the bat of Southern Miss’ outfielder Nick Monistere. Bothwell would exit the game after a stellar performance — 5.2 innings, seven hits, two earned runs and nine strikeouts.

Drew Buhr came in for relief and pitched the next 3.1 innings, closing out the game for the Hoosiers.

Indiana, who had scored 10+ runs in 12 different games since the beginning of April, would go on to add two more runs in the ninth to wrap up.

The Hoosiers now await the winner of Tennessee, the No. 1 overall seed in the region, and Northern Kentucky. They will play Saturday afternoon at 6:00 pm.

SEE ALSO: ‘You can play with emotion but you can’t play emotionally’: Jeff Mercer and battle-tested Indiana baseball ready for challenge of NCAA Tournament

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