The Iowa baseball team took two of three games against Nebraska this weekend at Duane Banks Field. After winning on Friday and Saturday, the Hawkeyes blew an eighth inning lead and fell 6-4 to the Huskers.
The series victory moves Iowa to 23-11 overall and 14-4 in Big Ten play, and currently sits in first place in the conference.
Here are three takeaways from the latest action in Iowa City:
Cade Obermueller shoves
In game one of the series on Friday night, the ball was placed in Cade Obermueller’s hands to start on the mound for the Hawkeyes.
Obermueller was entering the game as one of the hottest pitchers in the country. In his previous three starts, Obermueller threw 19 innings without allowing an earned run while piling up 32 strikeouts.
It was much of the same against the Huskers on Friday night, showing everyone why he earned Preseason Big Ten Pitcher of the Year honors from Perfect Game.
The Hawkeye offense struggled all game to generate any sort of offense, scoring just one run on three hits. Needing to give his team his best stuff, Obermueller shut down the Nebraska bats and kept Iowa winning the entire game.
He finished his outing with seven innings of two-hit baseball – fanning 11 batters and throwing 112 pitches.
“I’m figuring it out,” Obermueller said after the game. “I had a few rougher ones[starts] where I was throwing a lot of strikes and doing all the things I wanted to work on from last year to this year. I made a lot of the adjustments I wanted to make. I had new obstacles I had to figure out, and I’ve made the adjustment.”
The lone run Iowa scored in the second inning–a solo home run by third baseman Kooper Schulte– was enough to win the game after the performance from Obermueller.
Offense sputters on Sunday
After the grudge match on Friday, both offenses opened up game two on Saturday. The Hawkeyes scored six runs in the eighth inning to earn an 11-6 victory.
Hoping to keep the momentum in the scoring department, Iowa headed into Sunday’s game with a chance to sweep the series. The Hawkeyes scored four runs on the day, but that total didn’t tell the whole story.
Iowa was unable to generate the knockout punch offensively, leaving 13 runners on base and not taking advantage of the four Nebraska errors.
But the biggest lack of execution came in the bottom of the seventh inning.
After a one-out RBI double by catcher Daniel Rodgers to take a 4-3 lead, Iowa had runners on second and third with a chance to blow the game open and put up a serious crooked number.
Ultimately, the Hawkeyes failed to do so. A strikeout from Schulte was followed by an intentional walk of first baseman Caleb Wulf — putting pressure on right fielder Jackson Beaman to deliver the nail in the coffin.
Beaman battled for six pitches but eventually struck out swinging to end the inning.
Iowa head coach Rick Heller points this out as the biggest mistake of the afternoon for his team. Despite putting runners on base with a mix of timely hitting and Nebraska mistakes, the Hawkeyes left the door open all game long.
“They [Iowa] seemed to press a little bit,” Heller said. “You just have to stay who you are and stay true to yourself. Why are we pressing? We are so far ahead of what anybody thought we would be. Just go fricken play.”
Hawkeye fans fill the stands
Throughout the weekend, Duane Banks Field was filled with some of the biggest crowds it has seen in years. Fans packed the seats Friday through Sunday in anticipation of seeing their Iowa Hawkeyes play.
“It gets the adrenaline going a little more,” shortstop Gable Mitchell said. “Just having the support, it definitely puts pressure on them [Nebraska] more than anything. It was definitely the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen here.”
The average attendance over the three games was 1,970. Saturday’s contest had 2,654 crowd members, the most at Duane Banks Field since 2014.
Up Next
Iowa baseball returns to action on Wednesday, April 13, against the Bradley Braves. The first pitch will take place at 6:02 p.m., with coverage on Big Ten Plus and the Hawkeye Radio Network.