Brody Brecht sets the tone on the mound, as Iowa defeats Quinnipiac

Brody Brecht will be the first one to tell you that he may have tried a bit too hard to meet the expectations that people had for him last season as a true freshman. This year, he said he wants to focus on being the best version of himself. Today, we saw a Brody Brecht that was completely different than the Brody Brecht we saw last season.

“Brody went out and set the tone for us,” said head coach Rick Heller. “He was outstanding. He was able to hit with his slider, pretty much at will all day, which made him very dominant and unhittable. A great start, the best performance of his young career.” 

𝙁𝙞𝙡𝙩𝙝𝙮.@brody_brecht x #Hawkeyespic.twitter.com/U3rwl93WLi

— Iowa Baseball (@UIBaseball) February 18, 2023

Brecht struck out a career-high ten Bobcats over five innings, while hitting triple digits with his fastball. He did not allow a hit or give up a walk and handed the ball to Zach Voelker out of the bullpen in the sixth inning. Voelker was very good in his first appearance in an Iowa uniform.

“Voelker came in and was lights out as well,” said Heller. “Both of those guys did exactly what we needed to do. We didn’t walk a batter today. That was the message to the group, we had a situation where the wind is blowing in, not a great day to hit and really made Quinnipiac earn everything that they got.”  

The Long Beach State transfer allowed Quinnipiac to get on the board in the seventh inning, but just one run was all he allowed over 4.0 innings. He struck out six and scattered four hits across three innings.

Meanwhile, the Iowa offense was scoring runs and helping out their pitching staff. The Hawkeyes got on the board in the third inning. Keaton Anthony snuck a long flyball just inside the left field for his first home run of the season. Brayden Frazier added on later in the inning with a two-run double to put Iowa up 3-0.

They extended their lead in the fifth inning off of Bobcat reliever Andrew Rubayo. The Hawkeyes started the inning with five straight singles, including RBI singles from Brayden Frazier and Ben Tallman. Gable Mitchell added an RBI sacrifice fly and Michael Seegers knocked in another run with a sacrifice bunt. All the sudden, Iowa was leading 7-0. With Brecht and Voelker dominating on the mound, it was smooth sailing the rest of the way to a 7-1 victory.

“The offense was scrappy,” said Heller. “Just kept finding ways to get on base and then finally broke through with some runs in the middle innings. Keaton Anthony got us going with the home run, and Brayden Frazier had a big game…Really couldn’t have drawn it up any better with how things went today.”

Brayden Frazier was 3/3 on the day with three RBI’s to lead the offense. Kyle Huckstorf and Brennen Dorighi both had two hits and two runs scored. Raider Tello, Blake Guerin and Gable Mitchell all recorded their first hits in an Iowa uniform.

PLAYER OF THE GAME: RHP Brody Brecht (1st) – 5.0 INN, 10 K, 0 BB, 0 H

Brecht was named a preseason Third Team All-American by Baseball America and lived up to the hype today. It was just the second start of his career. After walking 25 batters in 22.2 innings last season, Brody walked zero today and faced a three ball count just three times.

UP NEXT FOR THE HAWKEYES…

With the win, Iowa moves to 2-0 on the young season. The Hawkeyes will look for the opening weekend sweep tomorrow when they once again face Quinnipiac. A win tomorrow would give Iowa just their third 3-0 or better start in the last 16 seasons. First pitch is set for 9:00am, while the game will be streamed on FloBaseball.