Indiana 's Baseball Season Ends With Ugly 15-3 Loss to Southern Miss in NCAA Regional

Tom Brew | Jun 2, 2024

Indiana's Devin Taylor (5) hits a home run during a NCAA Baseball Tournament Knoxville Regional game. / Angelina Alcantar/News Sentinel / USA

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Things went from bad to worse in just a matter of hours for Indiana's baseball team on Sunday in the NCAA Tournament regional. A second-straight brutal pitching performance led to an ugly 15-3 loss to Southern Miss, ending the Hoosiers' up-and-down injury-plagued season.

For the second straight day, the Hoosiers threw a whopping 222 pitches — 99 of which were balls — and walked 10 batters and hit two others. That wildness all led to a five-run first for Southern Miss against starter Brayden Risedorph, six more in the third and four more in the fourth.

It was never a game.

"You want to get the best stuff out of your hand,” Indiana coach Jeff Mercer said. “We want to have good stuff, but we also want to be able to control it and we didn’t do that yesterday or today.”

"To take a snapshot of a two-day window, I think is a bit unfair to how well the pitchers performed there for the last six to eight weeks. Obviously the last few days were disappointing, but that doesn't take away from what (the pitchers) did in totality."

The Hoosiers finished the season with a 33-26-1 record, and dealt with dozens of injuries throughout the season. They really weren't an NCAA Tournament team until the final month or so. And after beating Southern Miss 10-4 on Friday, things completely fell apart from there. They allowed 11 walks and two hit batters in a 12-6 loss to Tennessee on Saturday, and were just as bad with allowing free passes on Sunday.

It was a tough way to end the season, one the included a third NCAA invitation in five years.

"We were dead in the water there about a month or six weeks into the season," Mercer said. "We were in a tough spot, we were struggling. We didn't cave, we didn't quit and back down. We put ourselves in a position to compete on the biggest stage.

"The best things in life are the hardest things. When you look at how hard it was at times and how we persevered through those things, that's what I'll remember the most. It's hard to get back up and continue to fight. That's what this group did and that's what I'm very proud of. That's why I'll remember them for being a resilient and tough group that refused to quit."

Brandon Keyster pitched five innings of one-run ball for Indiana, but it was too little, too late. The Hoosiers only scored three runs, getting a solo home run from Devin Taylor in the fifth and a two-run shot from Jasen Oliver in the ninth.

Mercer has been complimentary of this group for weeks as they fought to gather enough Big Ten wins to merit an NCAA invitation, and then winning two games in the Big Ten Tournament last week in Omaha, Neb.

The Hoosiers weren't even sure they would get in to the NCAAs, actually saying all their goodbyes last weekend. But they got picked, and even won a game. This isn't how. they wanted it to end, especially since they had pitched much better through April and May.

Still, it's over.

"It will be centered around the message of appreciation and thanks," Mercer saidwhen asked what his message would be to his team on the way home. "Guys playing through injuries, battling through and how much they've invested in the program and to each other. That will be the message when we get a chance to talk."

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