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Iowa Baseball sweeps Western Michigan

On3 imageby:Kyle Huesmann•03/28/23•

HuesmannKyle

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Photo by Dennis Scheidt

The Iowa Baseball team continued their hot start to the season with a weekend sweep against the Western Michigan Broncos. The Hawkeyes have won nine games in a row to get 19-3, which marks a program record for best start to a season. Some of the national polls took notice, including Baseball America (#22), D1Baseball (#25) and Collegiate Baseball Newspaper (#17). Overall, they are ranked in five polls. It is the first time since 2015 that the Hawkeyes appeared in five or more Top 25 polls.

FRIDAY – IOWA 9 WESTERN MICHIGAN 3

Rick Heller got a good start out of Brody Brecht and it set the tone for the Hawkeyes. Brecht went 5.2 scoreless innings, while he racked up ten strikeouts to four walks and one hit. He has now gone 5.0+ innings in four of his six starts this season, including three in a row.

At the plate, the offense built an early lead. Cade Moss got the Hawkeyes on the board in the second inning with an RBI double. Kyle Huckstorf and Brennen Dorighi added RBI singles to make it 3-0. Iowa added on with two runs in the fourth and three in the fifth inning to make it 8-0. Sam Petersen blasted a solo home run in sixth for the exclamation point on what ended up being a 9-3 Hawkeyes victory.

“Huckstorf had another good day,” said Heller. “Dorighi had another good day. Lots of guys up and down the lineup, Cade Moss had a double. We just got good production, and if guys weren’t getting hits, they were finding ways to get on base.”  

Kyle Huckstorf, Brennen Dorighi and Sam Hojnar each had two hits. The offense combined for nine runs on 11 hits and drew eight walks to just four strikeouts.

SATURDAY GAME 1 – IOWA 13 WESTERN MICHIGAN 8

Game one of Saturday’s doubleheader was a shootout, as Jared Simpson and Zach Voelker did not have their best days on the mound. Jared Simpson allowed five runs on six hits over 2.2 innings, while Voelker allowed three runs on three hits over 4.1 innings. Luckily, for the Hawkeyes, their offense showed up again.

After the Broncos put up two runs in the second inning, Iowa answered in the bottom of the inning. Sam Hojnar delivered a three-run double to give Iowa the lead, which was followed by an RBI double from Cade Moss to make it 4-2 Hawkeyes. Western Michigan scored three runs in the third to take the lead back, but once again, Iowa answered back. Keaton Anthony clubbed a two-run home run to make 6-5 and then Ben Wilmes made it 7-5 with an RBI single.

In the fifth inning with an 8-5 lead and the bases loaded, Michael Seegers opened things up. He delivered a bases clearing double to extend the lead to 11-5. Luke Llewellyn went 2.0 scoreless innings out of the bullpen with three strikeouts and Iowa clinched the series with a 13-8 win. Sam Hojnar led the way with three hits and four RBI’s, while Raider Tello, Sam Petersen, Cade Moss and Ben Wilmes each had two hits.

SATURDAY GAME 2 – IOWA 21 WESTERN MICHIGAN 6

In game two of the doubleheader it was more offense for the Hawkeyes and a lot of it came from Raider Tello. Right away in the first inning, Kyle Huckstorf hit a two-run home run and Tello delivered a two-run double to put Iowa up 4-0. The runs never stopped coming after that.

The Hawkeyes scored four more runs in the second inning, including an RBI single from Raider Tello. Then in the third, the offense added another crooked number to the scoreboard. Seven runs, including a two-run double from Raider Tello to give him five RBI’s over just three innings. Iowa added five more runs in the fourth inning to make it 20-2 and Rick Heller’s squad cruised to a 21-6 win in seven innings to clinch the series sweep over the Broncos.

On the mound, Ty Langenberg went 5.0 innings and allowed two runs on seven hits. He struck out ten and walked zero, while landing 65/95 (68.4%) of his pitches for strikes. Chas Wheatley also threw a scoreless inning with a pair of strikeouts to end the game.

Raider Tello led the way with five hits, three runs and five RBI’s, while five other Hawkeyes registered two hits. On the weekend, the Iowa offense racked up 43 runs on 42 hits and did it while having good plate discipline. They drew 19 walks to 13 strikeouts, including five walks from Brennen Dorighi.

“I told the guys it was a really impressive weekend,” said head coach Rick Heller. “Offensively, great job getting pitches in the zone to hit. Didn’t chase hardly at all, all weekend long. When you do that, you end up with the opportunity to hit ball hard. We had a lot of extra base hits.”  

“You just play them all the same,” said Heller. “That’s how we try to our business. It gives you opportunities to be consistent like that. Eliminate the peaks and valleys. I don’t think our guys will fall prey to that. The biggest challenge for us as a staff is to keep working and keep pushing to get better because we still have a lot of things we need to improve on.”  

Up next for the Hawkeyes…

The Hawkeyes travel to Normal, Illinois tonight for a midweek matchup against the Illinois State Redbirds. First pitch is set for 5:00pm and the game will be streamed on ESPN+. After that, Iowa will welcome the Maryland Terrapins to Iowa City for their first Big Ten series of the season.

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