The Iowa baseball team had a few moments where its offense came alive, but none of it was enough as the Hawkeyes failed to slow down the scorching hot No. 19 Indiana Hoosiers in a three-game series over this past weekend.
The Hoosiers connected for 23 hits and brought home 16 runs in a 16-5 rout of Iowa in the first game of the series on Maerch 30. On Sunday, the Hawkeyes couldn’t find a route to victory in a double-header — they dropped game two of the series, 9-6, and game three, 6-4.
“I’m disappointed. I expect us to play much better, especially being at home for the first time,” Iowa head coach Jack Dahm said. “That’s an outstanding team we played against. We just had too many mental breakdowns.”
Iowa has now lost five of its last six to drop to 9-13 overall, 1-5 in the Big Ten . Indiana has won an NCAA leading 15-straight games to improve to 22-3 overall, 6-0 in the Big Ten.
Indiana was hitting .313 as a team heading into the series, and the Hoosiers showed why they are one of the best hitting teams in the country in the first game of the series. The second, third, and fourth hitters in the Hoosiers lineup hit 9-for-15 with 11 RBIs, 2 home runs, 1 double, 1 triple, and 7 runs in the 16-5 Hoosier victory on March 30.
Indiana had eight or more batters come up to bat in three separate innings and had a runner reach base in every inning of every game in the series.
“Obviously, it didn’t go the way we planned,” sophomore infielder Jake Yacinich said. “Sometimes a lack of focus came into play. Everyone battled, but things didn’t go the way we wanted.”
The Black and Gold saw a slight improvement in the next game in the series, a 9-6 loss. The team connected for 10 hits, and every batter but one collected at least one hit. After trailing by 5 runs early, Iowa came back with 4 in the fifth and 2 in the sixth to eventually knot the game up.
The Hoosier offense came through in the clutch, though, plating 2 runs in the eighth and 1 in the ninth while Iowa failed to collect a hit in the final three innings of the game.
Iowa’s offense hit a cold spell in the final game of the series but nearly pulled off a comeback in the ninth inning. After not getting a hit since the fourth inning and trailing 6-2, Iowa had a two-out rally in the final frame to bring 2 runs home on singles by Kris Goodman and Trevor Kenyon.
The team couldn’t drive in the 2 runs needed to tie the game, however, as Taylor Kaufman struck out looking with the bases loaded for the final out.
“It was a tough one to swallow. They’re a good team,” Kenyon said. “We kind of gave away those last two games. Our team as a whole tried to fight back, and we didn’t let it swallow us too much, but they’re just a good hitting team.”
