Late-game offense powers Hawkeyes to 16-1 win over Augustana College

The Augustana College Vikings gave the Hawkeyes all they could handle through six innings but couldn’t hang in the fight the whole way. Iowa broke out with an eight-run explosion in the seventh inning and tacked on five more runs in the eighth to finish off a 16-1 win on Tuesday evening at Duane Banks Field.

Although the final score doesn’t indicate it, the game was a highly contested affair for most of the afternoon. The Augustana offense came out on fire, totaling ten hits over the first six innings, but only were able to scratch across a single run. Those missed opportunities came back to haunt the Vikings, as Iowa turned on the jets, scoring 13 runs on 12 hits over two innings to secure the dominant win.

13 different Hawkeye hitters recorded a hit, while freshman Tyler Guerin and redshirt freshman Max Burt each notched the first hit of their respective Iowa careers. Over the last six games, the offense has broken out, putting up 73 runs (12.2 per gm) on 74 hits.

With the win, Iowa moves to 8-7 on the season and will go into their weekend series with Michigan State having won five of their last six games.

Players of the Game

• C Daniel Rogers: Recorded a team-high three hits on the day, as well as two RBI’s and two runs scored. His RBI double in the 2nd gave Iowa an early lead.
• RHP Sam Hart: Hart tossed a 1-2-3 seventh inning, recording a pair of strikeouts and throwing nine of his 12 pitches for strikes.
• LHP Ben DeTaeye: DeTaeye pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning, totaling two strikeouts and threw eight of his 13 pitches for strikes.

Hawkeye pitchers face plenty of traffic on the bases, escape unscathed on several occasions

A flip from last week’s midweek game against Loras College, when Hawkeye pitchers gave up just four hits, the Augustana hitters came ready to play and had plenty of traffic on the bases in the early innings. There were a few free bases given up that made a couple of the jams tougher than they needed to be, but the Vikings were racking up singles upon singles. Augustana had multiple runners on base in five of the first six innings, including two bases loaded situations, but plated just one run.

Although the Hawkeye pitchers got into some dirty innings, they managed to get out them without allowing the Vikings to put up a crooked number. Bryson Walker got Alec McGinnis to groundout with two on base in the second inning. In the fourth, Justin Hackett came in with the bases loaded and struck out Riley Hendren to end the threat. In the fifth, Chas Wheatley struck out two hitters with runners on base, including getting Michael Aragon looking with the bases loaded. Then in the six, Will Pearson struck out Kaileb Hackman to leave runners stranded on the corners.

“I was glad to actually see them in some rough situations and see how they’d handle it.”

“Augustana came ready to play, and they had leadoff hits in the first five innings,” said Heller. “To give up as many hits as we did and only give up a run meant that we had to make pitches. We had to make pitches in situations that could have completely changed that game.”

If the game ended after six innings that would have been the story. For the game, Iowa pitchers held Augustana to 1/11 (.091) with runners in scoring position and 0/2 (.000) with bases loaded.

“As we grow and as we get better, and as we gain more confidence, those moments are going to valuable, regardless of who you’re playing. Just being out there in those situations and having success is going to build confidence.”

Iowa offense fights windy conditions, held mostly quiet through six innings

Aside from back-to-back doubles from Tyler Guerin and Daniel Rogers in the second inning to put Iowa in front 1-0, the Iowa offense was held pretty quiet for the first half of the game. Through six innings, the Hawkeyes had not put a leadoff runner on base and had just five hits. The lead was 3-1, but it was far from comfortable with the way that Augustana was generating traffic on the bases.

Vikings pitchers retired 12 of the first 15 batters of the game, which allowed them to hang around even when they couldn’t convert baserunners into runs. The wind blowing in from right center field helped their cause, as the Hawkeyes had several hard-hit fly balls die out in the outfield.

“It was a good lesson for our hitters that there are days here (at Duane Banks) that you just have to live in that 10-to-15-degree line drive range because we were seeing balls hit 105 mph that weren’t going anywhere (in the air).”

Will Pearson, Sam Hart, Ben DeTaeye efficiently retire the Vikings in the 6th, 7th and 8th

After Augustana was seemingly putting major pressure on Hawkeye pitchers every inning for the first two hours of the game, the final few arms out of the bullpen were able to calm things down. Will Pearson put up a zero in sixth inning, working around an error and a single, but threw 9 of his 13 pitches for strikes and bounced back from a rough outing against Loras College.

Sam Hart and Ben DeTaeye were dominant in their respective one inning stints, combining for a pair of 1-2-3 innings, including four strikeouts. Hart threw 9 of his 12 pitches for strikes, while DeTaeye threw 8 of his 13 pitches in the zone. For DeTaeye, in particular, it was a big bounce back outing after he had been away from his normal self through his first few appearances of the season.

“The back-end guys did a pretty nice job of making it cleaner (towards the end). Sam Hart was solid, Ben DeTaeye looked like the Ben DeTaeye that I would expect out there. He looked like himself tonight.”

Hawkeyes blow the game open with eight runs in the 7th, five runs in the 8th

Assistant coach Marty Sutherland was pretty blunt with his message to the team heading into the fifth inning and the team responded with energy at the plate.

“Marty (Sutherland) told them after the fifth inning that the score was certainly not indicative of the butt-kicking they were getting,” said Heller. “He was right because they were beating us in every phase…the team responded, and I liked how many at-bats we strung in a row that were quality at-bats. Winning the last three innings was something we weren’t doing in the first eight, ten games.”

Ben Swails got the parade of hits and runs going, with an RBI double, but the real damage came with two outs in the inning. With the lead expanded to 6-1 after a wild pitch and an RBI groundout, the Hawkeyes blew the doors open with five consecutive two-out hits. Jackson Beaman doubled, Reese Moore singled, Daniel Rogers singled, Jaixen Frost doubled and Kooper Schulte doubled to open up an 11-1 lead.

The runs kept coming in the eighth inning. Reese Moore drove in a run with a single, while Max Burt tacked on a pair on the first hit of his Hawkeye career. Over the span of two innings, Iowa totaled 13 runs on 12 hits, with ten different players joining the hit parade.

Daniel Rogers turns in a much-needed standout performance at plate

A starter in ten of the first 12 games of the season, Rogers did not get the start in either of the final two games of the Rutgers series, sitting with a .171 batting average. He got a pinch-hit single in the series finale in Piscataway and then recorded a team-high three hits against the Vikings. His RBI double in the second inning put Iowa in front 1-0 and would have been a two-run home run over the centerfield wall on a day with no wind. He singled and scored in the fifth, while he finished off his day with an RBI single in the eight-run seventh inning.

“It was great to see Dan Rodgers have a good game. The one ball he hit was just destroyed and he ended up getting a double out of it, so it was good to see Dan barrel some balls up.”

One of, if not the greatest hitter in Loras College history, Rick Heller wants to have Daniel Rogers in the lineup on most days. Notching four hits in his last five at-bats is a good step in the right direction for Rogers and could help give him some confidence going forward.

What’s next for Rick Heller and Co?

Iowa will be back in action on Friday afternoon for the first of a three-game series against the Michigan State Spartans. First pitch is set for 4:05pm CT on BTN+.