Strong pitching and big hitting early on sparked Iowa (2-2) to an 8-1 win against Loras College (0-1) at Banks Field on a beautiful Wednesday evening.
By Adam Hensley
For a late February game, the warm contest felt like a midseason game — the batting looked as if it was in midseason form, too.
Junior Matt Hoeg provided the first big play of the game.
With two outs and the bases loaded in the first inning, the Waukee native sent a Duhawk pitch far into right field.
“They kept on working on fastballs, and my teammates got on base,” Hoeg said. “I was just trying to look for that outside fastball and drive it the other way. It happened to land in the spot where it needed to go.”
Hoeg’s triple brought in 3 runs for the Hawkeyes — their first runs at home in the 2017 season.
More importantly, it gave pitcher Grant Judkins a cushion to work with in his first career start.
“That was really big,” Iowa’s head coach Rick Heller said. “Anytime you play a game like this, when you’re going to throw a lot of pitchers, giving them a lead early is big.”
In three innings, Judkins struck out 4 and allowed only 1 hit.
“I’d say I’ve always been more comfortable starting,” he said. “It feels good to get the first start under the belt and move on from here.”
The next inning, Iowa’s Robert Neustrom blasted a pitch to deep center field — the ball bounced off the wall but gave Iowa another opportunity with the bases loaded once again.
Jake Adams kept the hitting going, getting on first with a single to left field and bringing in Tyler Cropley.
Austin Guzzo followed Adam’s lead. His single to right field brought in Mason McCoy and stretched the Hawkeye lead to 5.
An error in center field brought Cropley to third base in the bottom of the sixth. McCoy grounded out, but Cropley scored Iowa’s sixth run of the game.
Iowa added its seventh and eighth runs late in the game. Cropley hit a single, bringing in Corbin Woods. Another single, this time by Neustrom, brought Mitchell Boe home for the Hawkeyes.
Kyle Shimp, Nick Nelson, Sammy Lizarraga, Shane Ritter, and Zach Daniels saw time at the mound in Iowa’s win.
“I thought all the staff pitched pretty well,” Heller said. “Shimp, that was his first outing for us. There’s some big-time potential there. Getting [Lizarraga] back out there was big. Then getting Daniels back out on the mound — he had a rough close Game 1 on Friday — it was important to get him back out there and have some success heading into the weekend.”
Daniels allowed 4 runs (on 3 hits) in only 0.2 of an inning against South Florida.
Shimp recovered on a 3-0 count early to retire a Duhawk. The freshman pitched only 2 innings but struck out 3 of the 8 batters he faced and did not allow a single hit.
Ritter pitched for the second-straight game. In the first inning against South Florida on Feb. 19, Ritter allowed 3 runs before finding a seat in the dugout.
He struck out two batters in his first action when he entered at the top of the eighth.
The Hawkeyes will now travel to Hoover, Alabama, to participate in the Hoover Classic. Iowa will play Alabama State twice (noon Friday and 4 p.m. Saturday) and Morehead State at noon Feb. 26.