Nolan McCarthy

Nolan McCarthy celebrates a three-run home run as Kentucky hosts Indiana in the Lexington regional of the NCAA Tournament. Photo courtesy: University of Kentucky athletics.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WDRB) -- Kentucky needed two wins to keep its season alive at its own regional and emphatically delivered both to force a winner-take-all final.

After shutting out West Virginia 10-0 in an elimination game to start Sunday, the Wildcats racked up 16 runs on 14 hits, including four home runs, to avenge a Saturday loss to Indiana with a 16-6 rout. UK and IU will meet for a third time on Monday at 6 p.m. to decide who wins the Lexington regional and advances to the super regional round.

Kentucky head coach Nick Mingione has pulled off three straight victories to win a regional before with UK. That was back in 2017, which he said he used to help this group believe it could do it. Mingione added three keys he shared with his team coming into Sunday.

"Number one, we had to have a never-ending pursuit just to win one pitch at a time," Mingione said. "Number two, we need to have a team and a dugout full of people that had a desire to win, that dominated. Number three, we had to empty the tank.

I told them that before the game. I told them after the first game. I told them that before the second game and after the second game. And I'm proud of them. They did exactly that."

"I think that 18 innings was good for us," Kentucky first baseman and captain Hunter Gilliam said. "It kind of got our groove back. You've got a bunch of animals up there and we don't do tired. So 18 innings was nothing for the boys. We're ready to go."

A seven-run seventh inning highlighted a day of offensive dominance for UK to show that. The day started in the second inning with an unlikely Sunday hero.

Nolan McCarthy, who homered in the first win over the Mountaineers, started things off with a three-run blast for the Cats to jump out to a 3-0 lead. The sophomore entered Sunday with just one home run on the season and two for his career.

"We all know we can hit," McCarthy said. "We're a really good offense. We can do small ball and we can also leave the yard. I just think we've got everything going for us. Going into tomorrow, we just got to take it one pitch at a time."

Kentucky could have started to have flashbacks of another blown lead after seeing a two-run advantage erased in its previous loss to Indiana. IU struck back in the bottom of the third after Jackson Gray dropped a Evan Goforth ball that went over the fence for a home run to make it 4-1. Devin Taylor later added a RBI single, so the Hoosiers trailed by just two.

Gilliam immediately made sure IU did not keep rolling. The senior delivered his own RBI single, bringing in two runs to put Kentucky ahead 6-2, and finished the day with five RBI following a later home run. The Hoosiers responded again with a solo homer from Carter Mathison before Devin Burkes counterpunched with a two-run blast in the fifth inning for an 8-3 lead. From there, the Wildcats kept piling on hits and runs, with that seven-run seventh sealing a win.

"I feel like we had the advantage going into the second game today because we'd already seen pitching," McCarthy said. "We already put up some good runs. I mean, we were just ready to go from the jump."

Even if that meant wearing quite a few pitches. Kentucky had nine batters get hit by pitches against Indiana and has had 21 batters hit throughout the regional.

"We actually changed our batting practice up a little bit before the second game today," Gilliam said. "And we worked on some HBPs. It's part of our game and we feed off of it.

There's grown men up in that locker room who aren't afraid. You could throw it 150 miles an hour and we've got dudes, I promise you, who will stand in there. It doesn't faze us. It fires up the boys and we love it."

On the other side, it continued to frustrate Indiana's pitchers. The Hoosiers threw five arms in the loss, giving up its second-most runs and home runs in a game this season. 

"Sometimes, games go sideways," Indiana head coach Jeff Mercer said. "Today was one of those games. You just pick up and move on. You've got two to win one and go back and play tomorrow."

"That's why baseball is an incredible sport because you've got a game tomorrow," Indiana shortstop Phillip Glasser said. "It's not like football where it's once a week. We've been in that position before. And a lot of times, we've bounced back. So mentally, our guys will be ready for tomorrow."

A victory for Kentucky would mean the program goes to its first super regional since 2017, when the program first beat Indiana to start its three-game winning streak to avoid elimination.

"Momentum is cool and all," Gilliam said. "But this win expires when we wake up or when we go to bed tonight. So, we're going to create our own momentum tomorrow. And that's the momentum we are worried about is pitch one tomorrow."

'"At some point, more than likely, every team is going to go through this," Mingione said of the Wildcats having their backs against the wall. "This is what they signed up for. This is what they signed up for and they've just done a lot of really good things.

They didn't back down today. And it will take the same thing tomorrow against a really good Indiana team."

IU will enter Monday with a second chance to advance to a super regional for just the second time in program history. The Hoosiers have lost two of three meetings with the Wildcats this season, with the other defeat coming early in the regular season, a 12-2 loss on March 14.

"If you won enough games to get to this point in the season, then you've had to persevere through obstacles throughout the course of the year," Mercer said. "We'll be ready to play tomorrow. Win or lose, we'll be ready to play. You go out and you do the best you can. So, I don't worry about their mindset or mentality or anything like that."

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