While the cold weather doesn’t seem to be letting up in Bloomington, No. 25 Indiana baseball will head west this weekend to Surprise, Arizona, for the Sanderson Ford College Baseball Classic to kick off its season.
The Hoosiers have had success in the last two seasons under head coach Jeff Mercer, winning 76 total games, finishing in the top three in the Big Ten each season and going to back-to-back NCAA Tournament Regionals. Returning six position players that started in 40 or more games, Indiana will look to get over the hump starting Friday as it takes on the University of Nevada Las Vegas for their first of two meetings this weekend. It's the first team the two teams have ever met on the diamond.
UNLV
After winning 36 games and the Mountain West Conference tournament in 2022, head coach Stan Stolte and the Rebels have had a flat past two seasons. In 2023, they finished nine games under .500 at 21-30 before getting back to even a season ago at 26-26.
Last season, the Rebels ranked second in the Mountain West in batting average, walks and scoring. That offense returned its best player in redshirt junior second baseman JP Hefft. The San Clemente, California, native was a contact threat, ranking No. 11 in the conference, hitting .328 a season ago. He played in 50 games in 2024, collecting 65 hits, 12 doubles, three home runs and 33 RBIs. The Hoosiers are set to face Hefft twice in four days and will be one of the tougher matchups of the weekend for their pitching staff.
The Rebels picked up 20 transfers in the offseason, including Dean Toigo, a senior who is coming off an impressive season at National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics school Hope International University. Toigo played in 46 games, hitting .345 with a 1.033 OPS last season. He also sent 12 balls over the wall, collecting 46 RBIs and 12 doubles.
Toigo is joined by College of Southern Nevada teammates Nicky Garritano and Michael Cruz. Both junior infielders transferred in as on-base problems for opposing teams, with Garritano walking 37 times and Cruz 26. Garritano saw a dip in batting average in 2024, hitting .264 in 61 starts, however, he cut down his strikeouts by four despite playing seven more games. Cruz also saw a dip, but he still hit .323 with a .430 slugging and .418 on-base percentages.
Indiana’s offense has a chance to be exciting in 2025, and it will get started against sophomore pitcher Carson Lane on Friday, followed by Sam Simon on Monday. Lane, a former top 100 recruit in California, is always in attack mode, walking just 15of 192 batters faced in his freshman season. Lane had trouble when it came to successfully attacking the zone in his 40 2/3 innings pitched. He had a 7.52 earned run average, giving up 34 earned runs, 12 home runs, 55 hits and a .316 opponent batting average.
The Hoosiers’ Monday matchup with Simon will be a tougher battle, but not by much. Simon, a senior from Las Vegas, appeared in 13 games last season, starting seven of those. In his 55 2/3 innings pitched, he had a 6.47 ERA, giving up 40 earned runs, 27 walks, 62 hits and a .284 opponent batting average.
Xavier
While UNLV is a first-time opponent for Indiana, its game Saturday comes against a familiar opponent in Xavier University. The two teams have played 19 times in the last 22 seasons with Indiana winning 14 of those, including the previous two. After finishing 39-25 with a regional appearance in 2023, the Musketeers saw a dip in 2024 going 30-27.
Xavier returns 58% of its hits from a season ago along with 67% of its home runs. Those Muskateers scored 216 of the team’s 363 runs, driving in 195 of them. This power lineup was led by Aedan Anderson, a senior outfielder who was selected to the All-Big East preseason team, as he led the conference with 18 home runs and finished second in slugging percentage at .641, just behind fellow Musketeer Isaac Wachsmann.
Wachsmann, who played in 28 games in 2024 after dealing with a mid-season injury, was honored as the 2025 Preseason Big East Player of the Year by D1Baseball.com. The junior outfielder hit .330 with 31 hits in 94 at-bats a season ago, with 10 home runs and 20 RBIs. Should Wachsmann see a fully healthy season, he will not only be a problem for the Big East but for Xavier’s opponents, including Indiana.
On Saturday, the Hoosiers’ offense will face sophomore righty Ryan Piech, who will be pitching his first game at Xavier. From Aurora, Ohio, Piech attended Walsh Jesuit High School, where he set the single-game record for strikeouts in a game with 19.
Oregon State
Before wrapping up the Sanderson Ford College Baseball Classic in a rematch with UNLV on Monday, they will play their first ranked opponent of the year in No. 7 Oregon State University on Sunday. Like in football, Oregon State is an independent this season following conference realignment. Head coach Mitch Canham enters his sixth season with the Beavers as he’s ranked first in program history with a .669 winning percentage. In those six seasons, Canham has gone 35-12 in neutral-site games, including a 9-2 mark a season ago.
Following the loss of No. 1 overall pick Travis Bazzana in the 2024 MLB Draft, the Beavers turn to Gavin Turley, who ranks fourth all-time in program history with 33 career home runs. The junior outfielder from Chandler, Arizona, was the only player to start all 61 games for Oregon State a season ago, slugging 19 home runs with 74 RBIs while also hitting .277. If he stays healthy, he may surpass Bazzana, his former teammate, for the program lead in home runs.
Turley will be joined by standout Washington transfer Aiva Arquette, a junior shortstop from Honolulu, Hawaii. He hit .325 for the Huskies last season along with 12 home runs and 36 RBIs, fitting into the Beavers’ system that values power hitting. In the Cape Cod League last summer, Arquette hit .291 in 103 at-bats with a .793 OPS.
Indiana transfers redshirt senior Gavin Seebold and graduate student Cole Gilley will get the nod on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
All four games will be broadcast on Flo Sports, with Friday and Saturday’s matchups starting at 7 p.m.
