Baseball: Vanderbilt 10 Indiana 0

LOUISVILLE-- Freshman right-hander Sonny Gray threw eight innings of shutout baseball to lead Vanderbilt to a 10-0 win over Indiana in the elimination game of the Louisville Regional Saturday afternoon at Patterson Stadium.

The Commodores (35-26) will take on the loser of tonight’s Louisville/Middle Tennessee game on Sunday at 2 p.m. CT.

“It was a big game for both teams,” said Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin. “Both teams were in a situation where it was do or die, but we got quite a performance out of our pitcher (Gray). It was a good baseball game for us and we beat a good team that won the Big Ten tournament.”

Gray (5-1) limited the Hoosiers (32-27) to seven hits in eight innings of work, with 10 strikeouts and just one walk. Taylor Hill came on in the ninth and struck out one to close out the contest.

“The win feels great but the best thing about it, is that we live one more day,” said Sonny Gray. “We’re playing tomorrow.”

The shutout was the first for the Commodores in 27 games at the NCAA tournament and the margin of victory tied the school record previously set in an 11-1 win over Princeton in 2004.

Brian Harris led off the Commodores half of the first with a solo homer to left-center, his eighth homer of the year. Jonathan White followed with a triple down the left field line and scored on Curt Casali’s RBI groundout to short to give VU a 2-0 lead.

The Dores added an unearned run in the third when Jonathan White was hit by Indiana starter Matt Bashore, stole second and then came home on a throwing error by Bashore on a pickoff attempt at third.

The Hoosiers threatened in the fifth, loading the bases on three consecutive singles by Kipp Schutz, Evan Crawford and Vince Gonzalez. Gray came back to strike out Tyler Rogers and Jake Dunning looking and got Brian Lambert to ground out to short to end the Hoosier threat.

The Commodores broke open the game with a five-run fifth to extend the lead to 8-0. Riley Reynolds led off with a single, Brian Harris was hit by Bashore and Jonathan White lined a RBI single to center to open the scoring. Curt Casali grounded to second to advance the runners and Steven Liddle followed with a single to score both runners. Andrew Giobbi singled through the left side and both he and Liddle would score on Aaron Westlake’s double into the gap in left-center to make it 8-0.

VU added another run in the sixth when Riley Reynolds doubled and scored on Steven Liddle’s RBI single to right. Reynolds then closed out the scoring in the seventh on a RBI double that brought in Jason Esposito who singled right before him with two outs in the inning.

Liddle and Reynolds both had three hits apiece to lead the 13 hit attack. Jonathan White continued his solid play in the postseason, going 2-for-4 with three runs scored.

Indiana     000 000 000 - 091
Vanderbilt  201 051 10x - 10(13)0

Bashore, O’Gara (5), Hoff (7), Squires (8) and Phegley. Gray, Hill (9) and Giobbi W- Gray 5-1, L- Bashore 7-5. Sv- None. HR: VU: Harris (8)