Members of the Ohio State baseball team run off the field after huddling up before the Ohio State-Indiana game on April 3. Ohio State won 6-0. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Photo Editor
Coming into Monday’s series finale between the Buckeyes and Hoosiers, the two starting pitchers combined for three career starts, but the pair turned what could’ve been an offensive night into a pitcher’s duel.
Ohio State (20-19) dropped the four-game weekend finale against Indiana (25-16) 2-0, likely closing the book on the Buckeyes earning an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. It went 1-for-23 in the final seven innings despite a solid outing from freshman southpaw Isaiah Coupet who was making his first-ever collegiate start while pitching coach Dan DeLucia relayed the signs from the dugout.
“I’m happy with my start,” Coupet said. “Really just executing the plan. Dan called the pitches, and I tried to put it where he calls it.”
Coupet got the starting nod on the mound in place of senior lefty Griffan Smith and didn’t let the pressure get the best of him. He retired the first nine batters in order, striking out seven Hoosier hitters to set a career-high in that department.
The Flossmoor, Illinois, native utilized a good fastball-curveball combination — the latter being a pitch he said his father helped to incorporate in his arsenal.
“We’ve been messing around with it, found a grip and it stuck,” Coupet said. “From like age 12 it stuck and I’ve been throwing it ever since.”
The only trouble he ran into was in the bottom of the fourth inning when he allowed his only earned run of the game, accelerated by the Hoosiers’ adjustments to his wipeout curveball.
Senior shortstop Jeremy Houston reached base on a single back up the middle — the Hoosiers’ first baserunner of the game.
Indiana junior left fielder Drew Ashley followed that up with a tough at-bat of his own in which he fought off a couple breaking balls, falling out in front to smack one foul down the left-field line.
Ashley came through with an off-balance swing on a breaking ball that he stayed back on just long enough to smack a single into left.
After hitting sophomore center fielder Grant Richardson with a 3-2 curveball, Coupet needed to work out of a no-out, bases-loaded jam.
Coupet forced junior third baseman Cole Barr to chop a ball that had the makings of a base-hit into left field, but junior shortstop Zach Dezenzo ranged over and made a diving back-handed stop before throwing to third for the force out.
Indiana scored its first run of the ballgame on the play — later plating its second on a line-drive single in the eighth — and that was all it needed.
Ohio State’s offense was stymied by the Indiana pitching staff, collecting just two base hits in 29 at-bats.
Redshirt senior Conner Pohl led off the second inning, hitting a blooper down the left-field line that Ashley, Barr and Houston all converged on. It tipped off Houston’s glove and dropped in fair territory, allowing Pohl to reach second with a stand-up double.
He advanced to third on a groundout from redshirt senior catcher Brent Todys, but was caught lingering too far off the bag.
Sophomore right fielder Mitchell Okuley squared around for a safety squeeze bunt, but could not drop it down and Indiana redshirt senior catcher Collin Hopkins rifled a throw to Barr at third base, tagging out Pohl after a brief 2-5-2-5 rundown.
That cost Ohio State a run as Okuley’s flyout to center field could have allowed for Pohl to tag up and score from third.
The Buckeyes only reached base two more times in the game — junior third baseman Nick Erwin singled in the seventh and junior second baseman Marcus Ernst reached on an error in the ninth.
Ohio State could not take advantage of the few times it was on base going 0-for-5 with men on.
“In our hitters’ defense, relative to the baseball game — this is hard to say — but we out-hit them today,” head coach Greg Beals said. “We hit more balls hard than they did. We had several balls just missed, we had a couple balls hit on the nose, we had, I think, three line-drive outs and in a one-run ballgame those hurt.”
Ohio State returns to Columbus for its final homestand of the season at Bill Davis Stadium against Northwestern Friday through Sunday.
