Indiana baseball eliminated in Big Ten tournament after dropping pair of games to Nebraska

Indiana baseball is headed home to Bloomington after dropping a pair of games to Nebraska on Saturday with a chance to advance to the finals in the Big Ten tournament.

The Hoosiers (32-24) lost 10-4 in the night cap against a Cornhuskers team that set up the winner-take-all elimination game with a 4-2 win earlier in the day.

Indiana was looking to reach the championship game for the first time since 2014 and earn an automatic qualifier. The Hoosiers will now have to wait until Monday to see if they did enough to earn an NCAA tournament bid.

More: Indiana baseball outfielder Devin Taylor earns consecutive first team All-Big Ten honors

Nebraska catcher Josh Caron takes a wrecking ball to the Hoosiers

Nebraska catcher Josh Caron crushed IU pitching on Saturday.

In the early game, Caron blasted a three-run home run to left field in the third inning off starting pitcher Ty Bothwell that traveled 433 feet and 112 mph off his bat. Caron hit another one deep to left field in the eighth inning to give the Cornhuskers an insurance run in the top of the eighth

Caron came through in the late game with a home run off Julian Tonhini in the third inning. He went 3 of 7 with three home runs, five RBIs, four runs and a stolen base in the two games.

Nebraska also got big contributions from leadoff hitter Joshua Overbeek. He gave his team the early lead in the elimination game on Saturday night with a three-run double in the bottom of the second inning. Overbeek finished the day with three extra-base hits and had four RBIs.

The Cornhuskers led the entire way through.

Mitchell was the only IU hitter with multiple hits in the opener and he was 4 of 9 with a run on the day. Josh Pyne and Carter Mathison each had a pair of hits in the second game and Mathison accounted for the team’s only extra-base hit.

Nebraska's starters mow down the competition

Nebraska starters Will Walsh and Drew Christo set their team up for success on Saturday.

Walsh picked a good time to throw his third-ever complete game in the opener after Indiana put some pressure on him in the early innings. The Hoosiers put runners in scoring position each of the first three innings, but the only run they scored came in the bottom of the first off an RBI double from Nick Mitchell.

Indiana came away empty-handed after loading the bases in the second inning and Mitchell didn’t come around to score after hitting a leadoff triple in the third.

Walsh only allowed three baserunners the rest of the game. He finished the game allowing six hits and a walk over nine innings (121 pitches) with five strikeouts.

In the second game, Christo also flirted with trouble early — he loaded the bases in the top of the first inning — and allowed a run in the third, but retired the last six batters he faced. He exited the game in the sixth inning with Nebraska leading 6-1.

Indiana stranded 12 runners on base in the loss after putting up a program-record 22 runs through the first two games of the tournament.

Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Nebraska eliminates Indiana baseball from Big Ten tournament