Aaron Savary deals a gem, Hawkeyes clinch the series against Michigan

The Iowa Baseball team clinched a seventh consecutive Big Ten series on Saturday afternoon, defeating Michigan 3-2 at Ray Fisher Stadium in Ann Arbor. It’s been far from relaxing, with multiple nail-biting moments across both games, but the Hawkeyes have found ways to finish games off.

“Baseball can be not pretty a lot of times,” said associate head coach Marty Sutherland on the postgame radio broadcast. “But at the end of the day, you’re measured by how many runs you had compared to the other team, and we’ve found a way to have one more run the first two days here.”

With the win, the Hawkeyes move to 26-11 on the season and 16-4 in Big Ten play. After starting the season 3-6, Iowa has turned things completely around, winning 23 of their last 28 games.

Players of the Game

• RHP Aaron Savary: Savary allowed a hit in five of the seven innings he pitched, but scattered traffic. He allowed just one run on five hits, striking out seven and walking two.
• RHP Chas Wheatley: Wheatley escaped a jam in the eighth inning and then put up a zero in the ninth for his first career save. He struck out three over 1.2 innings.

Iowa misses a first inning scoring opportunity, Mitch Voit gives Michigan the lead

It looked like the Hawkeyes were going to jump on the board and give Aaron Savary some run support before he even toed the rubber. Ben Wilmes led the game with a double into the left-center gap on the second pitch of the game. However, Michigan starter Kurt Barr got out of an early jam.

Barr retired three straight Hawkeye hitters on nine pitches, including getting Miles Risley to groundout to leave Wilmes stranded at third base. Through just a half inning, it felt like big early escape for a Michigan team trying to even up the series.

In the bottom of the first, Mitch Voit gave the Wolverines the first run of the game. After Ben Casillas and Brayden Jefferis were retired on just six pitches, Voit took the first pitch from Savary and sent a long home run over the left field wall for a solo home run. Through two games in the series, Mitch Voit has five hits.

Hawkeyes score one in the third, two in the fourth to take the lead

It wasn’t a pretty offensive day for the Iowa offense, but they found a way to scratch a couple of runs across to take the lead before the midway point of the game.

In the third inning, Ben Swails led off with a single and then advanced to second on a wild pitch, giving the Hawkeyes the same scenario that they had in the first inning. He moved 90 feet closer after an Andy Nelson groundout, while Ben Wilmes was able to drive him in with a sacrifice fly to left field. Not a glamorous or explosive inning, but it squared things up on the scoreboard.

Then in the fourth inning, momentum quickly flipped in favor of Iowa. Reese Moore led off the inning with a double, followed by Miles Risley reaching via throwing error. With runners on the corners and no outs, it felt like the makings of a crooked number inning. Rick Heller went with the bunt in the next at-bat and Daniel Rogers laid down a good one, scoring Moore to put Iowa in front 2-1. After a Blake Guerin single, Kooper Schulte came up with a clutch base hit to extend the Hawkeyes advantage to 3-1.

Rippin' up the middle 🔥

Schulte RBI single extends our lead!#Hawkeyes pic.twitter.com/MK14Buq6Uj

— Iowa Baseball (@UIBaseball) April 19, 2025

Aaron Savary settles in, shuts down the Michigan offense over 7.0 innings

The first inning home run by Mitch Voit almost had no effect on Aaron Savary. He, for the most part, settled in after giving up the long ball and gave the Hawkeyes a start that they really needed after the bullpen was forced to cover 15 outs in the series opener on Friday.

“Aaron was dynamite,” said Sutherland. “Just did a great job limiting free bases and really just not a lot of traffic. It was a tremendous job by him.”

Savary allowed a hit in each of the first four innings, but didn’t compile it with a walk or anything else. He scattered the Wolverines baserunners and never got into any sort of serious trouble. Aaron retired the side in order in the fifth and sixth, before retiring the side around a walk and a hit in the seventh inning.

Over 7.0 innings, Savary allowed one run on five hits, tallying seven strikeouts to just one walk. He threw 65 of his 95 (68.4%), which is a season-high percentage of strikes thrown for him.

Hawkeye offense goes quiet, Kurt Barr matches Savary’s start

As good as Aaron Savary was for the Hawkeyes, Michigan head coach Tracy Smith got some pretty impressive pitching out of his staff. After Iowa put up runs in the third and fourth inning, it seemed like Wolverines starter Kurt Barr might have been set for an earlier than expected with his pitch count at 68 through four innings. Instead, he buckled down and dominated for the rest of his outing.

After Iowa’s two-run fourth inning, Barr retired eight of the last nine hitters he faced, including five strikeouts. On the day, Barr allowed three runs, one earned on six hits over 7.0 innings, including eight strikeouts to no walks. He threw 66 of his 102 (64.7%) pitches for strikes.

“You let them stick around, we had a chance, their pitcher was at 68 pitches after four innings and then we go 11 (pitches), 12 and 12. It was frustrating,” said Sutherland. “It was basically two innings where we had pretty decent at-bats and the rest of it, I don’t ever want to think about honestly. I just didn’t think we were great. Didn’t stick to our plan.”

After Kurt Barr departed, Max Debiec and Will Rogers each tossed scoreless innings to give the Michigan offense a chance to come back. Over the last five innings, the Iowa offense had just three baserunners and were held to a single hit.

Miles Risley makes a game-saving catch, Chas Wheatley closes things out for his first career save

With Iowa unable to find any insurance runs against the Michigan bullpen, the game was still up for grabs if the Wolverines were able to put some traffic on the bases. The situation got tense very quickly in the bottom of the eighth inning, forcing Rick Heller to go back to the bullpen.

Ben DeTaeye came on in relief of Savary to start the inning, but Michigan got three consecutive singles from Casillas, Jefferis and Voit to load the bases with nobody out. The third single, off the bat of Voit, seemingly looked like a fly ball to centerfield, but Miles Risley let it drop in front of him. Jeter Ybarra drove in a run with a sacrifice fly cutting the Iowa lead to 3-2 and Rick Heller turned to Chas Wheatley with two runners on and one out, looking for a groundball double play.

Instead, Wheatley struck out Colby Turner on three pitches for the second out of the inning. Then, as you see in the game of baseball quite often, the ball found Miles Risley once again, giving him a chance to redeem his earlier misplay. Cole Caruso sent a short, sinking line drive into center and Risley made the diving grab on a ball that would have tied the game had it found the turf.

“The difference was a mentality out of Miles on the second one. He knew he had to go get it, but I thought he made a great read on the first one, it’s just that (thought of) I don’t want it to get past me,” said Sutherland. “Go make a play, you’re a great defender, go make the play. Good job by him of bouncing back.”

In the bottom of the ninth, there was some tension, but much less than the eighth inning provided. Wheatley mowed down Jonathan Kim and Matt Spear with back-to-back strikeouts, but Greg Pace Jr reached with a two out single, bringing the winning run to the plate in the form of Ben Casillas. Ahead in the count 0-2, Chas got Casillas to ground out to end the game. Wheatley tossed 1.2 scoreless innings, including three strikeouts to earn his first career save.

“What a great job by Chas. The growth from him as a player, it’s been a lot of up and down for him for three years, and he’s just stuck with it and kept believing in himself. What a great effort out of him.”

W RIZZ#Hawkeyes pic.twitter.com/9padzAHYG3

— Iowa Baseball (@UIBaseball) April 19, 2025

What’s next for Rick Heller and Co?

The Hawkeyes will go for their third sweep of the conference season on Sunday. Iowa will have Reece Beuter on the mound, while the Michigan starter has not yet been announced. First pitch is set for 12:00pm CT on BTN+.