Iowa back in Big Ten baseball tournament championship after 13-inning win over Minnesota

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Tyler Cropley broke a 5-5 tie in the top of the 13th with a solo home run to left, and the Iowa baseball team earned a return trip to the Big Ten tournament title game by beating Minnesota 7-5 Saturday at Bart Kaufman Field.

The fifth-seeded Hawkeyes (37-20) will take on the winner of No. 7 seed Northwestern and No. 4 seed Maryland — a semifinal game that was moved to 8 a.m. Central Sunday. The championship will follow 40 minutes after that game's conclusion. Both games are on BTN.

'We've been dreaming of this ever since we got here in August,' Cropley said on BTN. 'We knew that pitching was going to be short in the bullpen, but we knew we could do it.'

No. 3 seed Minnesota (36-21) came out of the losers' bracket and forced a second semifinal game against Iowa with a 9-3 win earlier Saturday. The teams then set a record for longest Big Ten tournament game, finishing in 4 hours, 40 minutes.

Minnesota tied the game in the sixth on Luke Pettersen's RBI single, then neither team scored again until Cropley's blast snuck inside the foul pole seven innings later for his second homer of the game.

'I did not think it was fair,' Cropley said. 'The wind was not blowing ... I was just praying the wind would keep that one fair.'

Iowa added an insurance run on a throwing error, then Shane Ritter closed it down, allowing just a single in the bottom half.

The Hawkeyes got heroics from their bullpen after starter Cole McDonald allowed four earned runs on five hits in two innings. Josh Martsching was particularly excellent, working 5 2/3 scoreless innings and giving up just a pair of hits.

'Martsching came in and did great and their guys came in and did great, too,' Cropley said. 'We just had to keep the bats going. We knew they would fall eventually.'

Both teams made highlight-reel defensive plays as the game dragged on into the night, including Iowa left fielder Chris Whelan's diving catch in foul territory — this from a guy who was hit in the face by a pitch earlier in the game yet stayed in.

Minnesota led 4-1 after two before Iowa rallied with Whelan's RBI groundout and Jake Adams' solo home run in the third, then Hoeg's two-run long ball in the fourth.

Iowa has never won the Big Ten tournament. Ohio State edged the Hawkeyes last year, 8-7.