MSU baseball drops close one to IU
EAST LANSING - The Michigan State baseball team fell to Indiana, 3-2, in the opening game of the weekend series between the teams on Friday afternoon at McLane Stadium. Indiana used a three-run top of the sixth inning to take the lead and held on for the win to pull even with the Spartans in the Big Ten standings.
"It was a well-played ball game. Both teams executed well defensively. Unfortunately we gave up a big inning with a couple freebees and they took advantage," said MSU head coach Jake Boss Jr. "I thought we were better offensively today than we were in the middle of the week, which is encouraging. I thought our approach was better."
Friday's opener featured two of the conference's top starting pitchers in Cam Vieaux and IU's Kyle Hart. Both left-handers lived up to their respective reputations early on as the game went to the bottom of the fourth scoreless.
The Spartans' leading hitter Jordan Zimmerman broke through in the bottom of the fourth by taking Hart deep to left field. On a 2-0 count, Zimmerman turned on Hart's offering and sent it over the 375-foot sign in left-center field for his sixth home run of the season.
Vieaux retired the first two IU hitters in the first through fifth innings, but a hit batter to start the sixth led to trouble for the Spartans. A hit batter and a walk gave Ryan Fineman the chance to put IU on the board and he did just that with an RBI single. Indiana (22-14, 7-3) took the lead on a sacrifice fly by Austin Cangelosi and the next batter Isaiah Pasteur made it 3-1 on an RBI single into right field.
The three-run top of the sixth ended Vieaux's streak of 22 consecutive scoreless innings.
The Spartans (26-9, 7-3) pushed back in the bottom of the sixth to make it a 3-2 game. Brandon Hughes led off with a double to left field and scored three batters later when Taylor Grace brought him home on an RBI groundout.
IU's Thomas Belcher took over for Hart to start the eighth and retired all six hitters he faced to end the game. The Spartans' best chance to tie the game came with two outs in the ninth when Marty Bechina drilled a Belcher pitch to deep left field, but Dedelow tracked down the ball and made the catch with his back to the wall to end the game.
Vieaux (6-2) struck out eight in seven complete innings before Walter Borkovich took over to finish the game.
The Spartans and Hoosiers will meet again on Saturday at 1:05 p.m.
-MSU athletic communications