Bradley's Walk-Off RBI Single Lifts IU To 4-3 Win Over Northern Illinois
No. 14 Indiana needed another late rally against Northern Illinois, and this time it was Scotty Bradley coming in clutch with a walk-off RBI single to right in the bottom of the ninth to lift the Hoosiers to a 4-3 win over Northern Illinois Sunday afternoon at Bart Kaufman Field. The win secured a 3-0 series sweep for IU and moved the Hoosiers to 15-4 on the season, while the Huskies dropped to 4-14 with the loss.
Here's what stood out in Indiana's victory:
Bradley is clutch: The redshirt sophomore infielder collected his fourth RBI of the season and has recorded one in each of his last two appearances thanks to the two-out walkoff shot to right field. The clutch hit also came in his only at-bat of the game. His batting average sits at .286 on the season through nine games (five starts) after managing to play in just five in an injury-shortened 2017 season.
Situational hitting: Bradley's walk-off RBI was not the only two-out hit the Hoosiers had. In fact, all four of the Hoosiers' scoring plays Sunday afternoon came with two outs. Indiana went 8 for 16 in at-bats with two outs compared to just 2 for 10 for Illinois. Junior utility man Matt Lloyd broke the scoring open with an RBI double to left center with two outs in the bottom of the fifth. Junior catcher Ryan Fineman and freshman infielder Justin Walker added an RBI single each with two outs in the bottom of the sixth to give IU a 3-0 lead before Bradley had to come to the rescue.
Strong start from Beauchamp: The sophomore lefty allowed just four hits and tossed three strikeouts across six shutout innings, perhaps making a case to become Indiana's permanent Sunday starter. That's something the Hoosiers are still searching for, and IU head coach Chris Lemonis said Beauchamp will start next Sunday at Iowa. Beauchamp moved to 2-0 on the season with his performance, while his ERA dropped from 1.08 to 0.63.
Hoosiers taking advantage of homestand: Indiana is 6-1 over its last seven games since the home-opening loss to Cincinnati on March 6 following the three-game sweep of Northern Illinois this weekend. It will host Wright State on Tuesday at 4:05 p.m. ET before heading back onto the road for a three-game series at Iowa next weekend.
Key Quotes
On whether he was looking for a certain kind of pitch on the walk-off RBI:
"Just coming off the bench the first at-bat of the day, I'm just looking to be aggressive. The first pitch I got was a really good one to hit. No question, I was a little over-anxious on it and tried to do a little too much, but I believe it was a changeup, the second pitch that he left up. Just trying to get my swing off and luckily I got some barrel on it and it worked out." -- Bradley
On the situational hitting:
"Ryan Fineman I thought had a huge hit, and Justin Walker came behind it. I think maybe all of our runs - no, well, I guess, Lloyd’s was a two-out hit two, wasn’t it? - so they were all two-out hits which was huge." -- Lemonis
On being able to win games by as many as 18 runs or as few as one:
"I like the fact that we can come back and play well late in tight games. I like the 18-to-nothings better, but they don’t happen very often. We talked as a team, 18-to-nothing is usually, you’re going to come out and play two really hard games. We saw two great arms the last two days. That freshman for Northern Illinois, he is going to be a great college pitcher." -- Lemonis
"I would just have to say character of the team. It's a tight group. It's a veteran group as well, so we all feed off one another and we're picking each other up whether you're going good or going bad at the time. It's really good team camaraderie and a great group of guys to be around and show up to the ballpark with every single day and good to battle with." -- Bradley
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