Cade Obermueller pitches Iowa Hawkeyes to huge win at Big Ten Conference Baseball Tournament

CEDAR RAPIDS - Cade Obermueller is widely expected to go somewhere around the second round in July’s 2025 Major League Baseball Draft.

The Iowa Hawkeyes starting pitcher had a performance Wednesday night that showed why he is so highly regarded.

The southpaw from Iowa City High threw seven shutout innings, striking out 10, and Iowa held on to beat Rutgers, 4-3, in its first game at the Big Ten Conference Baseball Tournament Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Neb.

“Cade stepped up and pitched a gem,.” said Iowa Coach Rick Heller. “It was exactly what we needed tonight. I think he touched 96 (miles per hour) in the seventh inning, and we were tempted to throw him back out there But he’s on short rest and was over 100 pitches.“

The Hawkeyes (33-20-1) have another first-round Pool C game that has been changed to 9 p.m. Thursday night against Indiana because of the threat of weather Friday. That game is completely meaningless, though, as Iowa has clinched a spot in a Saturday night tournament semifinal against UCLA.

If you’re not aware of this tournament’s format, 12 teams are in the field: three each in one of four pools. Those three teams play a round-robin format with the winner emerging to the semis.

In case of ties, the team with the better tournament seed moves on, and that’s how Iowa already is a semifinal qualifier. Well, that and the brilliant performance of Obermueller.

A real nice bounceback outing from him, considering he game up eight runs last weekend as the Hawkeyes were 10-runned by Oregon.

“I felt more like myself," Obermueller said. "I was ready for the big stage, and I wanted to come out on top for the boys."

Obermueller’s fastball was consistently 93 to 94 miles per hour and he located that pitch and a sweeping slider to confound Rutgers hitters. He allowed just four hits and walked one and found little trouble.

Iowa’s offense gave him some immediate assistance, scoring three times in the bottom of the first inning on a Caleb Wulf run-scoring single, a RBI groundout by Daniel Rogers and a two-out bunt single by Kellen Strohmeyer that scored a run. Evan Risley’s RBI single off the Rutgers pitcher in the fourth made it a 4-0 Iowa lead.

“Just all day long being around the guys I felt like we were ready to go,“ said Iowa’s Gable Mitchell, who had three hits. ”This tournament is a big deal, but we try not to make it any bigger than it is. Things clicked today. Obviously they haven’t the last couple weeks, but that doesn’t matter anymore.“

Rutgers (29-28) made it a game once Obermueller was removed from the game. The Scarlet Knights got one run in the top of the eighth, bringing the tying run to the plate.

In the ninth, they got a leadoff walk and three singles to score twice amd make it a 4-3 game, with runners on the corners and two outs. Hawkeyes lefty reliever Brant Hogue struck out Pablo Santos swinging on a 2-2 fastball the end the game.

Iowa went into this tournament reeling, going 1-8-1 in its last 10 games. Its low RPI means it needs to win this tournament to get into next week’s NCAA tournament.

“We needed that,“ said Heller. ”I felt like if we could pull that one off it would be a good confidence boost for our guys. Really was happy with the way our guys came out and played tonight. They were locked in from the start.“

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