Iowa eliminated from NCAA regional with 7-5 loss to Houston

HOUSTON – Iowa's season came to a disappointing end on Sunday at the Houston Regional. The Hawkeyes couldn't beat top-seeded Houston a second time.

In an elimination game, the fourth-seeded Hawkeyes came up short, 7-5, at Schroeder Park against the Cougars, who advance to face Texas A&M on Monday at 12:04 p.m. If the Cougars win that game, it sets up a second and winner-take-all game between the two teams.

Connor Wong hit the first pitch of the top of the ninth for a solo home run off Josh Martsching for the go-ahead run, before the Cougars added a second run in the inning off the closer.

Momentum had switched to the Hawkeyes after tying the game 5-5 in the last of the eighth on Jake Adams' NCAA-leading 29th home run of the season. Leading off the inning, Adams jumped on a fastball down the middle on Joey Pulido's first pitch for a homer that easily cleared the left-field wall.

'It sparked our team a bit,' said Adams, a second-team All-America selection. 'When I got back to the dugout, everybody's pumped up, and I thought that was going to be the turning point. But we couldn't get anything going after that.'

JAKE ADAMS DOING JAKE ADAMS THINGS...June 5, 2017

JAKE ADAMS DOING JAKE ADAMS THINGS...#RoadToOmaha pic.twitter.com/cOxhF1rllA

— NCAA Baseball (@NCAACWS)

Solo shot in the 8th ties it up at 5!

After Houston took a 7-5 lead entering the bottom of the ninth, the Big Ten tournament champions had one final opportunity to extend their season. With one out, Ben Norman reached first on an infield single. But after Mitchell Boe was called out looking, Brayson Hurdsman (5-2) got Chris Whelan to fly out to short to end the game, and the Hawkeyes' season.

'I thought we were going to be able to get it done,' said Iowa coach Rick Heller, whose team twice overcame deficits against the nation's 15th-ranked team.

In Iowa's three-run fifth inning that gave the Hawkeyes (39-22) a 3-1 lead, Iowa left three runners on base, and then allowed the Cougars (42-20) to score three runs in the top of the sixth.

'You just can't do that if you're going to win a game against a good team like Houston,' Heller said. 'We just let them back in every time we did something.'

Sunday's game was delayed 5 hours, 26 minutes from the start because of lightning and rain, and didn't begin until 8:30 p.m. from a scheduled 3 p.m. start.

Leaving the bases loaded in the fifth proved costly for the Hawkeyes. They wasted a couple of opportunities and couldn't match Houston's two-run ninth off Martsching (5-1), who picked up a save in the Hawkeyes' 6-3 win over Houston on Friday night.

Norman collected two of Iowa's nine hits and finished the regional with six hits. Freshman Grant Judkins had two RBIs on Sunday.

Right-hander Drake Robison got the start on Sunday for Iowa. He was the star of the Big Ten tournament, throwing seven innings of four-hit ball and allowing only one run in the championship-game win.

On Sunday, Robison allowed only one run through four innings, but was relieved by Nick Nelson, after allowing three straight hits to start the sixth. Robison exited after giving up a double to Corey Julks that pulled the Cougars within 3-2.

In five-plus innings, Robison gave up four runs - three in Houston's three-run sixth that put the Cougars ahead 4-3 - and six hits.

The last six batters Houston starter Mitch Ullom faced all got on base – five hits and a hit batter. Iowa strung together five straight hits off Ullom with one out in the fifth to go ahead 2-1, and Ullom hit the final batter he faced, Whelan with the bases loaded, scoring Matt Hoeg, and giving the Hawkeyes a 3-1 advantage.

After Robert Neustrom flied out to left to begin the inning, the Hawkeyes got hit-happy. Tyler Cropley, who tripled in the gap in right-center, scored on a hard liner by Judkins that got past shortstop Cooper Coldiron.

Hoeg followed with a sharp single to left field, putting runners on first and second, and Norman singled to left, loading the bases. An infield single by Boe gave the Hawkeyes a 2-1 lead. The damage could have been greater, but Pulido struck out Mason McCoy with the bases loaded, and then got Adams to fly out to Corey Julks in center for the third out.

'In the beginning of the game we were pressing,' Adams said. 'Once we got up there relaxed, things went the way we wanted them to.'

It was a complete meltdown by Ullom, who faced the minimum number of batters over the first three innings. The second batter he faced, McCoy, singled. But Adams grounded into an inning-ending double play.

The Cougars scored first, with a third-inning run. Wong's sacrifice fly to center scored Lael Lockhart. Wong hit another long fly out to center fielder Norman to end the top of the fifth inning with Coldiron, who led off the inning with a double down the right-field line, stranded at third base.

Before the Houston Regional, Iowa and Houston had never played each other in baseball.