IU travels to take on Penn State

As the Hoosiers (20-18, 4-5) make the trip to University Park, Pa., this weekend, they look to keep the momentum from their past four games.

In the past four, the Hoosiers have taken three games, outscoring their opponents 15-7 in those wins.

On Wednesday night, the Hoosiers defeated the Indiana State Sycamores 3-0 in their third shutout of the season. The game marked the first in a series of five straight away games before the Hoosiers return to Bloomington to face Northwestern on April 21.

Freshman pitcher Lora Olson has picked up each of the team’s past three wins, including completing an entire seven innings in the circle against Indiana State on Wednesday.

In Meaghan Murphy’s last six decisions, four have been wins, but she has not pitched much since a loss to Michigan on April 7.

In other aspects, the Hoosiers have been defending well. The Hoosiers’ defensive strategy played a role in Wednesday’s win against the Sycamores as well. So far this season, the main Hoosier fielders together have averaged 33 chances, while also averaging 22 putouts. With these numbers, only three of these players have more than one error in the entire season.

Freshman utility player Brianna Meyer leads the team with 78 chances. Of those chances, Meyer has been consistently efficient with 73 putouts, four assists and just one error.

This weekend the Hoosiers face a 11-22 (3-6) Penn State team on a four-game win-streak. However, prior to those four games, the Nittany Lions lost 13 in a row.

Penn State resembles Indiana in some ways. Both pitching staffs have been built on two main pitchers. Penn State freshman Marissa Diescher’s ERA of 4.04 resembles Olson’s ERA. The past three years, the Nittany Lions’ senior pitcher Lisa Akamine has been named to the All-Big Ten third, third and second team, respectively.

Having a week’s break, after both games against Temple were canceled Wednesday, gave Akamine time to rest before facing the Hoosiers this weekend.

This weekend’s conference games will be the second conference home stand for Penn State. The Nittany Lions are undefeated in conference play at home.

Penn State’s junior outfielder Cassidy Bell leads the team in conference hits with 14. She is second for the squad with six conference RBI and has a .438 batting average. Along with a high batting average, she leads the team with three conference home runs and has a .83 slugging percentage. However, Bell has the most strikeouts with four in conference play.

The Hoosiers will face the Nittany Lions at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Saturday and again at 1 p.m. Sunday.

— Justin Shockey