The Iowa baseball team that showed up to play Tuesday against Wisconsin-Milwaukee was one that lacked focus and overall energy.

These factors allowed the visiting Panthers to hand the Hawkeyes a 10-3 victory.

The loss brings Iowa to 16-23 overall, only 5-11 at Banks Field.

“It was a very poor effort on our part,” Iowa baseball coach Jack Dahm said. “We got out played in every phase of the game. We weren’t ready to play, and that’s up to me to get our guys ready to play.”

Iowa began both scoreless and hitless through the first four innings. They accounted for a mere 3 runs and 6 hits against Milwaukee’s 10 runs and 15 hits. Each batter in the Panther lineup tallied a hit.

Milwaukee opened the night with a home run from Luke Meeteer on the second pitch of the game thrown by Calvin Mathews.

The freshman pitcher seemed to have settled down after that — he retired six-straight batters. But the Panthers plated 2 more runs in the third inning after Alex Erdmann slammed a two-run homer.

The Panthers pushed 2 more runs across the plate in the fourth-inning after Josh Martsching relieved Mathews.

The story continued in the next inning. Milwaukee pushed its lead to 10-0 against Sasha Kuebel. Iowa faced a steep challenge when it came to bat in the bottom of the fifth frame.

“We have to play better than what we played [Tuesday],” freshman Blake Hickman said. “We just have to come out better. The energy was just down today.”

The Black and Gold finally broke through in the fifth thanks to an Anthony Torres RBI double that drove Taylor Zeutenhorst home from second. Torres eventually scored Iowa’s second run when Nick Day singled to left.

Iowa accumulated 3 more hits and a run in the sixth. The flurry was put to rest quickly when Panther pitcher Brian Keller returned to form and allowed just 2 hits in the final three innings. The freshman pitcher tossed a complete game and surrendered 3 runs on 6 hits.

Iowa squandered three possible chances at runs after Eric Toole, Zeutenhorst and Kris Goodman were caught stealing in the first, second, and fourth. It was a rare out for Toole, who boasts the third-best stolen attempts percentage in the Big Ten. The center fielder is now 18-for-22 on stolen bases.

“It kind of slowed us down on the bases,” Toole said. “We like to steal. We like to be aggressive. It kind of had the pace thrown off. The pace was thrown off the whole entire game.”

Dahm said the loss was a collective effort.

“I think not being ready to play was a big thing about the way we showed up out here,” he said. “When you’re not ready to play, you don’t have energy, and you don’t play hard. That’s unacceptable, and we need to play the game and be ready to go.”