Indiana Baseball: Hoosiers Fall to No. 2 Arkansas in Texas Event

Indiana's daunting start to the college baseball season continued on Friday, and the Hoosiers, while playing much better, suffered their fourth-straight loss, falling to No. 2-ranked Arkansas 5-2 in the Karbach Round Rock Classic in Texas.

ROUND ROCK, Texas — By design, Indiana baseball coach Jeff Mercer knew the start to this season wouldn't be easy. To win against a team like No. 2-ranked Arkansas, Indiana was going to have to play perfect baseball on Friday.

That didn't happen in the Karbach Round Rock Classic, and the Hoosiers lost 5-2 to the loaded Razorbacks. The showing was much better than a week ago at Clemson, when Indiana pitchers gave up 33 runs in three games, but it was still nowhere near enough. Indiana fell to 0-4 on the season.

“I was really proud of our pitchers. John (Modugno) gave us a really good start, and he was competitive. Grant Holderfield came in and did really well and it was great to see Brad (Brehmer) come in and do well after last week.''

Indiana starter John Modugno ran into trouble in the fourth, but pitched OK otherwise, which was encouraging after getting roughed up in his debut last weekend at Clemson. He pitched five innings, giving up four runs, three earned, with five hits and three walks, with most of that trouble coming in the three-run fourth.

Outside of some trouble in the fourth inning, Indiana starter John Modugno was much better this week against No. 2 Arkansas then he was a week ago. 

He had two walks and hit a batter, and a Kip Fougerousse error helped allow Arkansas to tack on three runs in the inning to pull ahead 4-0.

Indiana didn't score until the fifth, getting a triple to right field by Morgan Colopy and an RBI double by third baseman Josh Pyne with one out. Indiana couldn't tack anything on, though.

Still, it was nice to see Indiana start to string hits together, something they've struggled to do so far this season.

"It felt good. We've focused on getting better every game, and we're starting to see it,'' said Colopy, who's one of Indiana's few returning starters. "When Josh came back from winter break, he's really been working his tail off.

"We've started off with a bunch of really good teams, so we're just excited to keep seeing improvement. The wins will come.''

Grant Holderfield, a freshman from Oak Park, Ill., relieved Modugno and pitched well. He threw a perfect sixth inning and gave up an unearned run in the seventh as Arkansas pushed the lead to 5-1. Bradley Brehmer pitched a scoreless eighth and a perfect ninth to end the day, which felt good after giving up six runs in one inning of work in Saturday's loss to Clemson.

Indiana had a hard time stringing any offense together against Arkansas starter Connor Noland. The righthander has 10 strikeouts through six innings and has allowed just five hits and a run, leaving with that 4-1 lead.

In the eighth inning, Indiana shortstop Phillip Glasser singled and Bobby Whalen walked. Glasser scored on an Arkansas error with two outs but freshman Carter Mathison was fooled with a breaking ball and struck out to end the inning.

"Any time you make a schedule like this, you're trying to have all your flaws lay bare so you can get through them,'' Mercer said. "We were much better today than we were a week ago today. Now it's about being better (Saturday).''

Indiana plays Louisiana-Lafayette and Noon ET on Saturday.  The game can be streamed online or listened to iuhoosiers.com.

Here are the links for Saturday's broadcasts: 

• Live Video: bit.ly/3sgekZu
• Live Audio: bit.ly/IUAudio

It was cold in Round Rock on Friday when Indiana lost to Arkansas, 5-2. Temperatures were in the mid-30s.