By Todd Golden
WICHITA, Kan. — When the Indiana State baseball team entered the Missouri Valley Conference Baseball Tournament, the Sycamores had high hopes of contending for a NCAA Tournament bid, or at the very least, to play for the conference championship.
By the time the Sycamores exited Wichita State’s Eck Stadium, they were resigned to playing in a deadening, anti-climactic game that meant nothing to either their aspirations or Friday opponent Southern Illinois.
With no pressure and nothing of consequence on the line, the Sycamores still couldn’t find a way out of a demoralizing rut. ISU led SIU by three runs early in the game, but the Salukis roared back to notch a 10-6 victory, ending the Sycamore season on a depressing down note.
“We picked the wrong time to play bad. The last week and a half, we’d hit and we couldn’t pitch. Or we’d pitch and we couldn’t hit. It just didn’t work out,” ISU left fielder Brady Shoemaker said.
ISU, which led the MVC by a game going into the final regular season series, ended its season on a seven-game losing streak. The NCAA aspirations, the national ranking the Sycamores briefly had, they all seemed a distant memory as No. 2-seeded ISU was the only team to go 0-3 at the MVC Tourney.
“It was a very frustrating three days for us. We didn’t at any time play the game we did that got us here. We have to get better at that next year. It was a learning experience for us,” ISU coach Lindsay Meggs said.
ISU appeared to regain its moxy with early offense and effective pitching by starter Jake Petricka. A two-run home run by Brian Jett in the second inning and a solo blast by Nick Ciolli in the third staked the Sycamores to a 3-0 advantage. Petricka only allowed one hit in the first three innings.
“We came in relaxed, maybe too relaxed, and were doing a lot of free-swinging,” SIU first baseman Mark Kelly said. “Once we calmed down and realized we should have fun, we were fine.”
Then the bottom fell out. An error by second baseman Brian Ramirez started a five-run Saluki flood in the fourth inning. A two-run double by Aaron Roberts, along with RBIs by Tyler Bullock, Jordan Sivertsen and Tony Lepore helped SIU take a 5-3 lead.
The SIU (24-28) advantage was 6-3 in the sixth when they put the game away. A four-run sixth inning, all but one of the runs were scored with two outs, finished the Sycamores off as ISU needed to use three pitchers in the inning to get out of trouble.
Jett’s second home run of the game came in the bottom of the sixth, but potential Sycamore rallies in the eighth (bases loaded) and ninth (runner at second) were stamped out by SIU’s bullpen.
Despite the bittersweet end to the season, ISU (33-21) finished with its best record since 2003 and it was its second-best record in the last decade.
Eleven seniors finished their ISU careers, including starters Ramirez, Jett, Brady Shoemaker and Bronco Lafrenz. Several more might have played their last games in a Sycamore uniform as juniors are eligible for the Major League Baseball draft and several ISU players could get drafted.
“I’m proud of our team, I’m proud of our accomplishments. The seniors turned the program around and got us back on the map in the Midwest,” Meggs said.
