Following a blowout loss Wednesday afternoon at Western Illinois, the Iowa baseball team will try to rebound this weekend as it heads to West Lafayette to take on Purdue.

The three-game series will be the second of the year in Big Ten play for Iowa, which recently swept defending Big Ten champs Indiana at Banks Field.

A win today would move the team to 19-7 overall, 4-0 in conference play.

The Hawkeyes are coming off of their worst loss of the season at the hands of the Leathernecks, who thrashed Iowa, 16-5, in a long-winded affair Wednesday after the Iowa pitching staff became careless with walked batters.

“The game crashed on us in the fifth and sixth innings,” Iowa head coach Rick Heller said. “Whether it was the base on balls or the free bases, it gave them a chance to get back in it, and then they got hot, and we couldn’t stop them. Thirteen or 14 of their runs came with two outs, and then in the fifth inning they got 6 runs with two outs.

“Unfortunately, days like this can happen when you walk guys.”

The Hawks will need to be more diligent on the mound against the Boilermakers, who are coming off of a big victory, a 9-1 win over Indiana/Purdue-Fort Wayne.

And though the Boilermakers are one of the slowest teams in the Big Ten from an offensive standpoint, the Hawks are still working out a few kinks of their own and need to string together a few more solid wins.