Adkins Hits for Natural Cycle in Regular Season Finale
 UPLAND, Ind. – Jared Adkins put an exclamation point on his regular season by hitting for the cycle in Taylor’s 17-13 loss to No. 21 Indiana Southeast on Tuesday evening in TU’s final outing before opening the Crossroads League Tournament on Saturday.
The game spanned nearly four hours and featured 15 pitchers and 411 pitches thrown in the nine inning slugfest. The offenses did damage throughout, combining for 30 runs on 37 hits, while working 15 walks and pounding out 17 extra-base hits.
Adkins headlined the night for the Trojans by hitting for the natural cycle in his first six trips to the dish. The junior opened the bottom of the first with a hard single up the middle, before walking and reaching on a fielder’s choice in his next two plate appearances in the second and third innings.
Adkins came up again in the fourth and doubled to deep left, before tripling into the left field corner in the bottom half of the sixth and completing the cycle with a home run to dead center for his 15th blast of the year.
Adkins ended the night four-of-six at the plate with two runs scored, three runs batted in and a stolen base. Brian Fields also homered in the contest for TU, while Wyatt Whitman tripled and Josh Lane, Tanner Watson and Nathan Targgart all doubled.
Watson, Targgart, Fields and Lane joined Adkins in posting multi-hit games, while Sam Wiese scored three times, drove in two and added two of Taylor’s 11 walks.
Riley Reimschisel and Trevor Booth made their first collegiate appearances on the mound for the Trojans, as Reimschisel collected a ground out and Booth notched a strikeout for the final two outs of the top of the ninth against the locked-in IU Southeast (43-11) bats.
The game featured multiple momentum swings, as the two sides traded big rallies throughout the night. IU Southeast moved in front for good with a six-run outburst in the seventh and took a 17-11 lead entering the eighth.
Taylor cut it to 17-12 with the Adkins homer in the eighth and pushed a run across with the bases still loaded and nobody out in the bottom of the ninth, before seeing the threat fizzle with three more runners left on the bases in a game that saw TU strand 16.
The Trojans (34-19) will now turn their attention to the 2017 Crossroads League Tournament, which is set to begin with a 3:00 pm affair against Goshen (24-27) on Saturday, May 6.
