IU baseball rebounds to capture national seed

With his team hovering near .500 through the first month of the season, Indiana University baseball coach Tracy Smith believed the Hoosiers had already cost themselves an NCAA Tournament national seed. So he tried to turn it into a positive.

"We actually had a talk in the locker room: 'Hey, we've kind of stumbled here early, probably taken ourselves out of position for a national seed. Let's just get back to playing as well as we can,' " Smith told his team. "Fortunately, we did, and caught fire a little bit."

Indiana (42-13) finished the season 33-5, won the Big Ten regular-season and tournament championships and on Monday became the first team in conference history to earn one of those eight national seeds. The Hoosiers will host Indiana State, Stanford and Youngstown State in Bloomington for a first-round regional, starting Friday.

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A top-10 team nationally to begin the season, Indiana struggled early, particularly at the plate. The Hoosiers began the season 9-8 and were just 15-10 at the end of March.

Several key players have since admitted they felt — and were weighed down — by the expectations that accompanied them into the 2014 season.

"At the beginning of the year, we put too much pressure on ourselves and we struggled," junior first baseman and Big Ten Player of the Year Sam Travis said.

Now, Indiana will prepare for a No. 4 seed in Youngstown State, in the postseason via an unexpected run through the Horizon League tournament.

Their national seed means the Hoosiers would host the winner of Vanderbilt's regional in a best-of-three super regional, should they advance past this weekend. Senior third baseman Dustin DeMuth said he found the task at hand the toughest a season ago. "I think the regional's probably harder than the super regional, to be honest, just because you're playing different teams," he said. "You don't know what to expect."

Indiana opens the weekend at 7 p.m. Friday. No. 3 seed Stanford and No. 2 seed Indiana State will open the regional at 2 p.m. Friday.

Bloomington Regional

At Bart Kaufman Field

All games on ESPN3

Friday

• Game 1: No. 3 Stanford (30-23) vs. No. 2 Indiana State (35-16), 2 p.m.

• Game 2: No. 1 Indiana (42-13) vs. No. 4 Youngstown State, 7 p.m.

Saturday

• Game 3: Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, 2 p.m.

• Game 4: Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, 6 p.m.

Sunday

• Game 5: Game 4 loser vs. Game 3 winner, 1 p.m.

• Game 6: Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 6 p.m.

• Game 7: Game 6 loser vs. Game 6 winner, 5:30 p.m. (if necessary)