COLUMBUS, Ohio — Senior right fielder Chris Hervey couldn’t imagine in his freshman year that the downtrodden Indiana baseball program would be playing for the Big Ten tournament title during his career.
But the arrival of coach Tracy Smith his first season marked the start of a turnaround that was capped Saturday when Hervey had four RBI as the Hoosiers defeated Minnesota 13-2 to qualify for the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1996.
“If you had asked me four years ago if we would be in this position right now I would have laughed,” Hervey said as the conference championship trophy sat next to him at a postgame press conference. “I’ve seen the worst of the worst and the best of the best now.”
Starter Matt Igel limited Minnesota to two runs in five innings, and the third-seeded Hoosiers (32-25) scored 47 runs in winning all four games in Huntington Park.
Igel, who pitched 2/3 of an inning in relief Friday against Ohio State, allowed four Minnesota hits and left the game with a 7-2 lead.
Chris Squires gave up two hits over the final four innings.
The No. 2 seed Gophers (38-17) had scored 34 runs in their previous three games over two days. Earlier Saturday they defeated top seed Ohio State 9-6 to advance out of the losers’ bracket.
Minnesota coach John Anderson said he was proud of his players’ effort.
“We basically played four nine-inning games in the last 24 hours,” Anderson said. “That’s not an easy task. For what our kids accomplished, I’m impressed.”
Indiana took a 2-0 lead in the second on a Jake Dunning sacrifice fly and Hervey’s single. Jerrud Sabourin made it 3-0 when he hit the first pitch of the third into the right-field foul pole.
Minnesota got a run back in the bottom of the frame when Derek McCallum hit a two-out, towering home run near the 405-foot sign in dead center.
The Hoosiers went ahead 7-1 in the fourth on a two-run throwing error by third baseman Kyle Geason and RBI singles from Hervey and Sabourin.
Indiana catcher Josh Phegley said he and his teammates were “as relaxed as we’ve been all year in this tournament.”
Indiana pitcher Matt Bashore was named the most outstanding player of the tournament.
College Sports
Indiana tops Minnesota, makes first NCAA since 1996
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