The past two weekends have been kind to Iowa baseball; the Hawkeyes have racked up three wins against ranked teams, splitting a doubleheader with No. 11 Indiana and taking a three-game series, 2-1, over No. 22 Illinois.
Iowa wants to carry that momentum into its midweek game against Grand View today.
The game comes at a good time for the Hawkeyes, and even though Grand View isn’t the best team they will play all year, it serves a purpose.
It’s a chance for the Iowa offense to stay hot after a stellar showing in Champaign, where it scored 24 runs in the three-game series.
Right fielder Robert Neustrom and catcher Tyler Cropley had solid performances at the plate, especially in the first two games.
On March 30 and 31, Neustrom went a combined 4-for-10 at the dish with 5 RBIs and 5 runs scored.
Cropley went 2-for-4, scoring 4 runs, and knocking in 1.
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With 20 of their 24 runs being scored over the first two games, the Hawkeyes showed the damage they are capable of causing against highly ranked teams.
“I thought our at-bats up and down the lineup were quality,” Iowa head coach Rick Heller said in a release on March 30. “Neustrom is heating up, and Cropley has been good for us all year. We are starting to get the offense going, and it has just taken us a while to get there.”
The Vikings enter the game with a 12-14 record and a 5-7 record in their conference. Grand View is also 0-4 all-time against the Hawkeyes with the last matchup being a 6-5 loss at Banks Field in 2017.
Grand View is coming off of a home split with Missouri Valley College. In the first game, a bases-loaded walk in the fifth inning gave the Vikings the victory, while the second game had more to it.
In the second, Grand View took the game into extra innings but gave up 5 runs in the 10th inning and committed 4 errors in a losing effort.
While the Vikings have struggled all season and recently, losing four of their last six, the Hawkeyes have had some close midweek games, meaning they can’t look past today’s contest.
On March 28, Iowa took on Bradley, and while it had control for most of the game, the Braves started to make a comeback in the seventh and eighth innings. Bradley took the lead until Iowa tied it and hit a walk-off grand slam courtesy of Cropley in the bottom of the ninth.
The week before that, the Hawkeyes were faced with the challenge of Division-3 Loras College. The Duhawks led, 4-1, heading into the bottom of the eighth, when Matt Hoeg ripped a 3-RBI double, and Austin Guzzo crushed a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth.
