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Hawkeyes battle to a tie with Oregon State

On3 imageby:Kyle Huesmann•05/11/25•

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The Hawkeyes tied the Beavers in Sunday's series finale. (Photo by Dennis Scheidt)
The Hawkeyes tied the Beavers in Sunday's series finale. (Photo by Dennis Scheidt)

A very anticlimactic end to the weekend in Des Moines at Principal Park. Iowa, trailing 6-5 in the bottom of the tenth, got a solo home run off the bat of Jaixen Frost to knot things up again. However, minutes later, the end of the inning also marked the end up the game. Due to travel curfew with an outgoing flight for Oregon State, Sunday’s series finale was deemed a 6-6 tie after ten innings at 3:37pm CT.

“In baseball there shouldn’t be a tie, so it’s frustrating and with travel, sometimes it happens,” said head coach Rick Heller. “Disappointed because it felt like we shouldn’t have been in that situation if we’d made them earn it…proud of the guys because they fought hard.”

With the tie, Iowa moves to 32-17-1 this season, while it is the first tie for the Hawkeyes since 2002 against Northern Iowa. The RPI awards half points for a tie, so Iowa earns 25 points and bumps up a couple of spots to 66th.

Players of the Game

  • LHP Ben DeTaeye: DeTaeye tossed 5.0 no-hit innings in his start, striking out seven and walk four. It was his first weekend start for the Hawkeyes.
  • 3B Jaixen Frost: Minutes before the time limit ended the game, Frost hit a solo home run, turning a potential loss into a tie.
  • OF Ben Wilmes: Wilmes finished with a game-high three hits and had two RBI’s for the Hawkeyes.

Hawkeyes jump on OSU starter Ethan Kleinschmit with runs in the first two innings of the game

Despite starting on Sunday, OSU left-hander Ethan Kleinschmit was touted as the top starter in the Beavers rotation, holding a 4.21 ERA in 12 starts. The Hawkeyes struggled mightily against Dax Whitney on Saturday afternoon, but got to Kleinschmit, grabbing their first lead of the series with runs in the first two innings of the game.

Ben Wilmes wasted no time putting Iowa in a position to score, taking just the fourth pitch off the Hawkeyes half of the first inning for a triple off the right field wall. In the ensuing at-bat, Gable Mitchell singled to left field, giving the Hawkeyes their first lead of the weekend. They kept the pressure on, with Mitchell advancing to third on a stolen base, plus a throwing error from the catcher. That allowed Caleb Wulf to make it 2-0 Iowa with an RBI groundout.

In the second, Kleinschmit started to lose his command, issuing a pair of one-out walks, but he was able to strike out Ben Swails, putting him on the brink of escaping a jam. Ben Wilmes, who finished the game with a game-high three hits, came through with a two-out RBI single to drive in Kooper Schulte from second base.

Kleinschmit settled in a bit, thereafter, allowing three runs, two earned on four hits over 4.2 innings. He struck out seven, but walked four, throwing 57 of his 91 (62.6%) pitches for strikes.

Ben DeTaeye steps up, delivers an impressive start with Reece Beuter out

With Reece Beuter out due to a “nerve issue that flared up Thursday during his bullpen” according to Rick Heller, the Hawkeyes were forced to roll with a bullpen game. The initial plan was for fifth-year senior Ben DeTaeye to go for three innings, before turning the ball over to someone else. DeTaeye, making his first career weekend start, was stellar and gave Iowa a picture-perfect start.

“DeTaeye was fantastic today,” said Heller. “Optimistically, I was hoping to get three innings, and he just pitched great. We scored some runs early, gave him the lead to work with.”

Over 5.0 innings, Ben did not allow a single hit, striking out a career-high seven hitters, while he threw a career-high 86 pitches. After issuing a leadoff walk to Aiva Arquette to begin the game, DeTaeye got a 1-6-3 double play to quickly settle things down. From there, he struck out seven of the next 11 batters he faced, working around a leadoff walk in the fourth inning. The coaching staff rolled out DeTaeye for the sixth inning, but an error and a walk put two on base with nobody out prompting a move to the bullpen from Coach Heller.

“Coach (Heller) told me I had the nod last night. It was a little mental change from coming out of the bullpen,” said DeTaeye. “Just a dedication towards getting people out and committing to it. There’re more walks in there than you would hope for, but you stick to the plan, you keep throwing and you get zeros.”

Beavers take advantage of free bases; Wilson Weber gives OSU the lead with a grand slam

It felt like the game story was writing itself. Ben DeTaeye puts together a gritty, career-best start en route to an Iowa win. However, that storyline quickly got put on hold, as the Beavers took advantage of free bases and needed just one hit to change the game entirely.

With two on and no outs, Heller turned to Anthony Watts, who has been one of, if not the most trusted arm in the Iowa bullpen this season. After a rough outing on Friday, Watts was unable to bounce back and faced just two batters, walking both Aiva Arquette and Gavin Turley to give OSU a run and keep the bases loaded with no outs.

Brant Hogue entered into an almost impossible situation and Wilson Weber delivered a titanic blow. He took the 2-0 offering from Hogue and hit it a grand slam to the deepest part of the park in right-center field. All of the sudden, the Beavers led 5-3, despite the scoreboard showing just one hit.

“That was a rough inning. Four free bases and a grand slam,” said Heller. “You look at the scoreboard, they’ve got two hits, so just a disappointing way to give them the runs.”

The grand slam was a tough start to his outing, but Hogue was able to log some important innings out of the bullpen, giving the offense a chance to scratch their way back into the game. He allowed one run on three hits over 3.0 innings, including five strikeouts to three walks. Hogue threw 60.3% of his 68 pitches for strikes.

“Brant Hogue fought hard for us, logged some innings in some pressure situations and did a good job after that (grand slam).”

Hawkeyes scratch runs across in the sixth and eighth to tie the game

As deflating as the Weber grand slam was, Iowa responded quickly with a run in the bottom of the sixth. The first two batters of the inning reached, including a Mitch Wood pinch-hit double to put two in scoring position with no outs. OSU reliever Wyatt Queen was able to wiggle out of the jam, but not before Gable Mitchell recorded an RBI groundout to cut the deficit to one run. Although a single could have tied the game, getting a run after the Beavers five-run inning was a big response.

Then in the eighth, still trailing 5-4, Kellen Strohmeyer led off with a double into the left field corner, allowing Rick Heller to turn to the small ball game to tie it. Andy Nelson laid down a sac bunt to move Strohmeyer to third, while Ben Wilmes laid down a sac bunt to score Strohmeyer. One extra base hit and two bunts later, the Hawkeyes had tied the game.

“The fight, the effort and the toughness were there,” said Heller. “We swung the bat better today than we did yesterday (against Whitney and Keljo).”

Jaixen Frost’s clutch home run matches OSU’s top of the tenth run, game ends in a tie

Chas Wheatley was able to leave two runners stranded in the top of the ninth, retiring Gavin Turley and Weber Wilson, but pitching in his second game of the weekend, fatigue set in for him in the tenth.

“Unfortunately, kind of ran out of gas. Thinking we get through that inning and then maybe start somebody else after that, but anybody else that was going in was going to be a guy that hadn’t been out there very much (on the weekends).”

After getting AJ Singer to pop out to begin the tenth, Canon Reeder singled, which was followed by a sac bunt from pinch-hitter Levi Jones. Then, facing a 2-0 count against Jacob Krieg, Iowa opted to intentionally walk him to set up the force out opportunity. However, the chance never came, as Wheatley walked pinch-hitter Easton Talt on a 3-2 pitch and then hit Dawson Santana on a 1-1 count to bring in a run, making it 6-5 Beavers.

Facing their first sweep since 2019, Jaixen Frost, who entered the game in the eighth inning at third base, came through with a clutch at-bat. He took the 0-1 pitch from reliever AJ Hutcheson and sent a solo home run onto the suites in left field to tie the game once again.

“That was a huge at-bat,” said Heller. “A huge, clutch hit for Jaixen that saved us. It was going to be a pretty miserable loss the way it happened.”

Hutcheson got out of the inning, getting Ben Wilmes to fly out with a runner on base, but instead of an 11th inning, the game ended in a 6-6 tie. The coaches agreed on no inning beginning past 3:35pm CT due to the Beavers flight out of Des Moines this evening.

“We just ran out of time,” said Heller. “Hadn’t been in one of those in a long, long time. Frustrating that we didn’t get a chance to play it out.”

What’s next for Rick Heller and Co?

The Hawkeyes return to Iowa City for their regular season finale series against the Oregon Ducks. First pitch on Thursday is set for 6:05pm CT on FS1.

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