Bloomington, Ind. – After falling behind by three runs, the Gophers rallied to defeat Indiana 5-4 in the opening game of the Big Ten baseball tournament Wednesday morning.
Terrin Vavra's single scored Luke Pettersen, who had doubled, with the eventual winning run in the bottom of the seventh.
Jordan Kozicky hit a two-out, two-run homer in the fifth to cut the Hoosiers' lead to 4-3. The freshman left fielder extended his on-base streak to 36 games with his fourth homer this year. Micah Coffey doubled in the sixth and later scored on Matt Stemper's sacrifice fly to tie the score at 4-4.
The Gophers' other run came in the first inning when Vavra doubled and came home on Toby Hanson's single, his 52nd RBI this season.
The Gophers (34-19) scored four of their five runs with two outs.
Lucas Gilreath started for the Gophers, seeded third in the double-elimination tournament, and gave up four runs on six hits in 5 ⅓ innings. He struck out five and walked one.
Fred Manke, who earned the victory, gave up only one hit in 2 ⅓ innings of relief. Brian Glowicki recorded his 16th save with 1⅓ innings. He didn't give up a hit and struck out two in breaking Scott Matyas' single-season program record for saves set in 2009.
Matt Lloyd had two RBI and Craig Dedelow had a solo homer for the sixth-seeded Hoosiers (32-21-1).
Minnesota will play seventh-seeded Northwestern (24-29), which defeated second-seeded Michigan 6-4, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the winners' bracket. The Gophers and Wildcats have not played this season.
