MORGANTOWN — The beat — and the beatings — go on for West Virginia,

The team that prided itself on its consistency and ability to bounce back from adversity while going two years without losing three games in a row has played itself to the edge of elimination in the NCAA Tournament dropped its sixth straight game, falling to Indiana, 12-6, in the Lexington Regional.

Normally efficient on the mound, at the plate and in the field, the Mountaineers did very little right as they allowed the Big Ten’s Hoosiers to break open a one-run game with five ninth-inning runs.

WVU allowed 12 runs on nine hits, never a good sign, walked eight, made two errors, threw two run-scoring wild pitches and struck out 11 times.

With the loss the Mountaineers slide into the loser’s bracket and play again at noon on Saturday against Ball State of the MAC, which lost to top-seeded Kentucky, 4-0, with the losing team going home.

WVU is now 39-19 while Indiana is 41-18,

As West Virginia went on a five-game losing streak in Texas to end its regular season and the Big 12 Tournament on a sour note, all they could do was tip their hats to their conquerors.

They got outhit, our run, outpitched, outfield and, most of all, outscored.

They simply were beaten straight up.

That was not the story against Indiana, the No. 2 team in the Big Ten and the No. 3 seed in the Lexington Regional.

West Virginia had no one to blame but themselves as this normally fundamentally sound team did nothing right, and it started right out of bed.

Mazey opted to start Blaine Traxel, normally his second starter behind Ben Hampton, and if WVU had played its normal game he might have gotten away with it.

But the Mountaineers were totally out of whack all night.

They took an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first when, after Tevin Tucker and JJ Wetherholt had struck out, Landon Wallace stunned Indiana’s 6-8, 230-pound starting pitcher Luke Sinnard over the right-field wall for his 11th home run of the season.

Protecting the lead proved to be difficult as Traxel walked leadoff hitter Carter Mathison in the second.

Didn’t seem like it would be a fatal error as Traxel coaxed a double play ground ball to Tucker at short. The senior, normally a smooth operator in the field, made a wild throw to Wetherholt at second and instead of two out there were runners at second and third with no one out.

After Traxel struck out consecutive hitters, Phillip Glasser singled to score both runners and give Indiana its first lead.

Indiana increased the lead in the third inning and once again WVU helped them along with it, ignoring the advice that Tucker had given heading into the tournament.

“At the end of the day it’s just baseball, at a higher level but just baseball,” he said. “You just have to control what you can control.”

But WVU couldn’t control much of anything as this third run scored on a wild pitch from Traxel, his first of two on the night with runners at third base.

In the bottom of the third it appeared WVU caught a huge break as the Hoosiers’ starting pitcher threw a pitch and felt something pop in his elbow. After a long discussion and a test pitch, he was removed for true freshman Brayden Risdorph.

The freshman was clearly not himself as he hit the first batter he faced to put runners at first second before Tucker laid down a sacrifice bunt. Wetherholt also was hit by a pitch to load the bases.

WVU turned all this into a two-run inning as Landon Wallace walked for one run and Caleb McNeeley hit a sacrifice fly for a 3-2 lead.

Again, they fumbled it away. It started with a single by Peter Serruto and Glasser beat out a bunt, to put runners at first and second with no one out. That worked so well that Bobby Whalen was asked to sacrifice and Traxel, who just had one of those nights, picked it up and hurled it into right field.

Serruto scored on the play and Taylor added a sacrifice fly and Indiana was ahead, 6-4, the Mountaineers getting one of the runs back in the bottom of the sixth to make it 6-5.

In the eighth, a misplayed fly ball that went as a double for Mathison, who wound up scoring on a sacrifice fly for an insurance run.

The Mountaineers kept scratching, though, and got the run back and drew to within one at 7-6 entering the ninth.

Despite trailing by a run in the ninth, WVU was feeling pretty good about itself with Wetherholt and his .442 average leading off the ninth … but first they had to get Indiana out.

And, as it had been all night, they were very generous and gave the Hoosiers five runs to put the game away.

With two out reliever Hagaman, who had done a solid job of relief, walked consecutive batters, which is like leaving town on a week’s vacation and putting a note on your door saying you’d be gone but the door was open.

It was an invitation to Indiana to take what they wanted.

Calrson Reed, the closer, came on and was greeted by Brock Tibbetts, who hit a line drive to right that fell in front of a closing McNeeley and then skipped past him as two runs scored on the triple.

Carter Mathison followed with an RBI and then Josh Pyne closed that open door with a two run home run and it was 12-6.