By Blake Dowson
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Baseball is a game of inches. Any of the 445 fans in attendance during the fifth inning of Iowa baseball’s 4-3 victory over Illinois on Sunday at Banks Field would attest to that.
With the game tied at 1, senior Eric Schenck-Joblinske beat out a potential double-play ball with runners on first and second to extend the inning, barely beating the throw to first from Illini shortstop Adam Walton.
“When the play happened, when Schenck beat out that double play, I was like ‘Oh yeah,’ because I just had a funny feeling Booker might run into one, just by the way he swung the first few times,” head coach Rick Heller said.
Senior Joel Booker stepped to the plate and chopped the second pitch he saw behind third base, floating foul by the width of a baseball.
It seemed like a disappointing foul ball. Booker more than likely would have beaten the throw to first, and senior Tyler Peyton would have scored the go-ahead run from third.
However, Booker dug back in and sent the next pitch he saw over the left field wall for a towering 3-run home run that put Iowa up for good.
“[Assistant coach] Marty [Sutherland] told me before my at-bat to sit slider and then react fastball,” Booker said. “So I sat slider, and he ended up throwing a fastball, and I ended up getting a barrel on it.”
Booker also drove in the first run of the game for Iowa in the third inning. A single to start the inning by junior Mason McCoy, followed by a double off the left-center field wall by Schenck-Joblinske set Booker up for a sacrifice fly, scoring McCoy.
Sophomore Nick Gallagher got the nod on the mound for the Hawkeyes over usual Sunday starter Calvin Mathews.
Gallagher went five innings, working out of a jam in the first inning to allow only 1 run. He gave up the run after the Illini strung together three-straight hits and was stuck with the bases loaded and no outs.
A 5-2 putout, followed by a weak pop-up to Nick Roscetti at shortstop and a ground ball to second base got Gallagher out of the inning as he flirted with disaster.
“We were in a high-pressure situation right off the bat,” Heller said. “With Nick Gallagher, they nickel-and-dimed him with three-straight hits, and it looked like it was going to spiral out of control and have them put a crooked number up in the first.”
It was smooth sailing for Gallagher after the first; he threw four-straight scoreless frames before he was removed.
The Iowa relievers lost track of the strike zone in the last three innings, however, walking 6, hitting 2, and allowing 2 runs.
Freshman Zach Daniels manned the mound for the ninth inning with a 1-run lead. A leadoff strikeout, followed by a walk and an error on McCoy, put runners on second and third.
Heller elected to intentionally walk the next man to load the bases and set up a double play.
A strikeout set up a bases loaded showdown against Doran Turchin, who had launched a grand slam on April 9. Turchin roped a ball back to the mound; Daniels got a glove on it, and tossed the ball underhand to first to secure the series win.
“I just tried to keep myself under control and not panic in that situation,” Daniels said. “I told Coach [Heller] at the beginning of the year that I like being put in those situations.”