After Iowa baseball freshman Sam Petersen swung at a pitch that bounced over home plate, head coach Rick Heller called him over to the third-base coaches’ box for some words of encouragement.

The swing-and-miss put Petersen down, 0-2, in the count against Central Michigan on Sunday afternoon. But what followed Petersen’s worst swing of the day was his best swing of the afternoon.

With two outs and runners on second and third base in a tie game at the bottom of the eighth inning, Petersen lined the pitch into left-center field for a two-RBI single. His knock gave Iowa a 4-2 lead — the winning margin.

“When he chased the breaking ball at 56 feet, I was thinking the game might be going a little fast for him,” Heller said of Petersen’s eighth-inning plate appearance. “So, we just tried to slow him down a little bit, and tell him to use his deep breaths and 15-second funnel that we use, and step in there and give us a good at-bat.”

Petersen said he was prepared to hit anything close to the strike zone with the 0-2 count, but he was surprised he got his favorite pitch.

“I’m always a hitter that likes to sit fastball, but two strikes, you got to be ready to hit everything,” Petersen said. “But [the pitcher] gave me a fastball up in the zone that I was able to stay on top of and hit a line-drive with.

“I’ve struggled with off-speed [pitches] early on this year,” Petersen continued. “So, I think it’s in the [scouting report] to throw off-speed and I think they were actually playing that. I think they were expecting me to sit off-speed so they threw a fastball.”

Petersen’s eighth-inning single capped off his best weekend as a Hawkeye. In the three-game series against Central Michigan, the freshman went a combined 6-of-9 at the plate and added three walks on the weekend. He drove in six runs, including his second collegiate home run — a three-run shot that lifted the Hawkeyes to a 7-4 win on Friday night. 

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The Hawkeyes’ victory on Sunday gave the Hawkeyes 2-of-3 games against the Chippewas — Iowa’s first series win of the season.

Iowa improved its season record to 12-9 with one game remaining on its nonconference season. Heller’s bunch has won six of its last eight games.

Up next 

The Hawkeyes will travel to Normal, Illinois, to take on Illinois State on Tuesday at 5 p.m. Iowa will then travel to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to open Big Ten play against Michigan this weekend.