Gophers baseball team beats Indiana, retakes first place in Big Ten

The No. 19-ranked Gophers baseball team is back in first place in the Big Ten.

Minnesota beat Indiana 8-6 on Saturday at new Siebert Field before a record crowd of 1,349 to vault the Hoosiers by one-half game.

Leadoff hitter Dan Motl led the Gophers (30-14, 12-4) by going 3-for-5 with a solo homer that gave the home team the lead for good at 3-2 in the third inning. Micah Coffey had a two-run homer for the Gophers.

Winner Dalton Sawyer pitched the first six innings, giving up only two runs and seven hits. He struck out eight.

Trailing 8-2, Indiana (27-17, 12-5) scored four runs in the eighth, but Jordan Jess retired all six batters he faced for the save. The Hoosiers won the first game of the series 12-8 on Friday.

After driving in five runs the night before, catcher Taylor LeMay had four more RBI as the Gophers defeated Iowa 9-2 on Saturday in Big Ten softball in Iowa City for their 10th win in a row.

LeMay had an RBI-single in the first inning for Minnesota (37-12, 18-3 Big Ten), a two-run triple in the second and a run-scoring groundout in the third.

Senior lefthander Nikki Anderson pitched a five-hitter and struck out six while walking none. The two runs scored by the Hawkeyes (13-38, 3-19) in the fifth were unearned.

Freshman first baseman Maddie Houlihan doubled to drive in a run in the second for her 11th consecutive hit over three games before she was retired twice.

Elsewhere, Michigan beat Rutgers 11-1 to clinch its ninth consecutive regular-season conference title. The Gophers, No. 19 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll, will finish second.

• Gustavus used two last-inning comebacks to sweep No. 15-ranked St. Thomas, 6-5 and 5-4 in MIAC baseball play at the Tommies' Koch Diamond. The Tommies (25-11 overall, 14-6 MIAC) still secured at least a share of the MIAC championship because second-place St. John's (13-7 MIAC) was swept 11-1, 11-9 at home by Concordia Moorhead and Hamline (13-7 MIAC) split at Carleton. St. Mary's (12-6 MIAC) can tie the Tommies with a home sweep of Bethel on Sunday.

• Host St. Thomas and St. Catherine will play in the championship game of the MIAC softball tournament at 11 a.m. Sunday. The top-seeded Tommies advanced with a 3-0 win over St. Catherine on Kierstin Anderson-Glass' four-hitter. Later the Wildcats beat Hamline 3-0 in the losers' bracket final on Krista Flugstad's four-hitter.

• Gustavus beat Carleton 5-0 in the title match of the MIAC women's tennis playoffs.