Friday night baseball proved to be the Nick Gallagher show.

The Hawkeyes (15-9) rode the hot hand of junior pitcher for a 3-0 win against UNLV (10-18) on March 31 at Banks Field. Gallagher tallied 7 scoreless innings and allowed only 2 hits.

“I was attacking a lot with my fastball,” the Iowa City native said. “We knew if we threw quality strikes, we were going to get outs.”

At one point midway through the game, Gallagher retired 15-straight batters. He also struck out 6 Rebels and did not allow a walk.

Iowa struggled to find consistency hitting. The Hawkeyes only managed 6 hits in the game, but the biggest came late, extending Iowa’s lead.

Up 1-0 in the bottom of the eighth with Jake Adams and Ben Norman on second and first, Tyler Cropley launched a ball to right field for his second hit of the game.

His double brought in both runners, giving pitcher Jake Martsching a comfortable cushion to work with heading into the ninth.

Iowa struck first.

Mitchell Boe drilled a ball deep for a triple. Chris Whelan followed by grounding out to second base, driving in Boe for the game’s first run.

Before the start of the game, Iowa announced that because of incoming rainy weather on April 2, the third game of the series would be played as the second game of a double-header.

First pitch for the first game is scheduled for 12:05 p.m. April 1 (no fooling), with the second game set for 4:05 p.m. at Banks Field.

— by Adam Hensley