Iowa Baseball falls to Illinois in controversial fashion

It was an up and down season for the Iowa Baseball team. They entered the year with the highest of expectations, with hopes of winning the Big Ten and potentially hosting an NCAA Tournament regional. According to Rick Heller, every so often you get a season where it seems like every break goes against you. Unfortunately for the Hawkeyes, the 2024 season was one of those seasons.

Fighting for their life in the losers bracket portion of the Big Ten Tournament, the Hawkeyes were hoping to overcome the bad breaks to keep their season alive for another day. After a two-run single from Coltin Quagliano gave Illinois a 4-2 lead, going into the bottom of the tenth, they were backed into a corner. As you would expect from a Rick Heller coached team, they continued to fight and nearly pulled off the comeback.

“We didn’t give up, we fought hard and in the ninth (Joe) Glassey was just mowing us down. The guys came out in the tenth after they scored two runs and fought back,” said Heller. “How it all went down, I really don’t even understand.”

Illinois reliever Joe Glassey struck out the side in the ninth, but Iowa got to him in the tenth inning. Davis Cop led off the inning with a double, which was followed by a walk from Reese Moore and a single from Will Mulflur. All of the sudden, it was the Illini hanging on for dear life and trying to stick around in Omaha for another day.

Kyle Huckstorf entered to pinch-run at first base and Michael Seegers stepped to the plate. A ball in the gap could potentially score three and win the game. Facing a 1-2 count, Seegers grounded a ball to Drake Westcott at first, who turned, fired it to second base, but the return throw from shortstop Cal Hejza was late. Fielder’s choice, one run scores, runners on the corners with one out, right?

Instead, the umpires deemed that the slide from Huckstorf was illegal and called runners interference, which not only meant that he was out, but Seegers was also out and no runs would score. A game and season-changing call. After a lengthy review, the call was confirmed and Rick Heller was subsuqently tossed from the game. Ben Wilmes struck out swinging on five pitches and the game was over.

“I still don’t even know what they saw on the double play,” said Heller in his postgame press conference. “I’ve watched it 20 times and I’m still confused. To have it end like that, yeah, we still had a chance, but I don’t really know what to say.”

Iowa is called for interference here on this slide from Kyle Huckstorf in the bottom of the tenth inning of the Big Ten Tournament game against Illinois.

You be the judge, but it sure looks like there was very little contact, if any from the runner.😬pic.twitter.com/Ehec7xqhg6

— The Comeback (@thecomeback) May 23, 2024

Prior to that call and the end of the game, the Hawkeyes and Illini played to a 2-2 tie through nine innings. The pitching staff was shaky at times, but was able to limit the damage. Cade Obermueller got the start on the mound and allowed one run on three hits over 5.0 innings, including seven strikeouts to five walks. He threw 56 of his 103 (54.4%) strikes.

“I felt good and I felt like I really battled,” said Obermueller. “I think I could have done a lot better, but I battled.”

The Illini tallied their only run against Cade in the top of the fourth inning. A one out double from Jacob Schroeder got the rally started, but it was three walks in the span of four batters that plated a run. Rick Heller felt like some things outside of Obermueller’s control contributed to walking in the run.

“Cade felt like he wasn’t getting the calls on some edge pitches that didn’t go his way and I thought he let it affect the inning that he walked a run in,” said Heller. “That can’t happen, with bad body language and so forth, but he bounced back and gave us a good start.”

After coming up scoreless through five innings against Illinois starter Cooper Omans, the Hawkeye offense got things rolling in the sixth inning trailing 2-0. A one out single off the bat of Michael Seegers knocked Omans from the game and the Illini went to reliever Ben Plumley.

Upon his arrival into the contest, he hurried his throw to first on a ground ball from Ben Wilmes and threw it away putting two runners in scoring position for Iowa. Gable Mitchell made the error hurt with an RBI single, while Cade Moss laid down a sacrifice bunt that scored Wilmes. Tie game and a brand new ballgame.

Reliever Anthony Watts put up zeros in the seventh and eighth, but ran into trouble in the ninth inning. Back-to-back hits from Illinois, including a double from Drake Westcott put two in scoring position with two outs. Rick Heller turned to Ganon Archer with the game on the line and Archer delivered, getting Vytas Valincius to fly out to end the inning.

“Watts didn’t have his fastball command, which got him in some trouble, but he was able to work out of it,” said Heller. “Ganon Archer came in in a situation he hadn’t been in before, second and third, two outs and got the out.”

The Hawkeyes had chances in the final three innings to take the lead and possibly win the game. However, a single from Davis Cop was all they got against the Illinois bullpen over their last three at-bats and the game headed to extra innings. Ultimately, that was the difference. The Illini drove in a pair of runs off the bat of Coltin Quagliano and Iowa was unable to answer in their half of the tenth.

The Hawkeyes close the season with a 31-23 record and for just the second time in ten years, they went 0-2 at the Big Ten Tournament. It will go down as a season that did not live up to the expectations due to a variety of factors.

“It really is a bit battling, but I’ve dont this long enough to know every seven to ten years there’s one that doesn’t make a lot of sense and the ball doesn’t always bounce your way that year,” said Heller. “Sometimes if you keep playing, it comes back around, but this year, right when I thought it was starting to come around the injury bug hit us and we lost two of the best players in the Big Ten.”

“That was hard for us to overcome, but I thought we did a good job of figuring out a way to win a lot of games and even had a chance if we would have swept Illinois that last weekend to mathematically still win the league.”