Iowa Hawkeyes’ record baseball season ends with Sunday night loss to Indiana State, 11-8

CEDAR RAPIDS - Iowa’s baseball team played a bunch of dramatic games this weekend at a NCAA tournament regional at Bob Warn Field in Terre Haute, Ind.

Guess that’s the way it’s supposed to work in the postseason.

The Hawkeyes ended up winning two, losing two, and their record season is over.

That record season officially came to an end Sunday night with an 11-8 loss to Indiana State. Iowa finished 44-16, its win total tying the 1981 school record for wins in a season.

"We fought until the end,” Iowa Coach Rick Heller said. “That really shows the character of this team. We all really believed that we were going to find a way to score more runs tonight regardless of what happened."

As you look back at this regional, it was decided by Iowa and Indiana State’s first game Saturday night. The Sycamore scored five runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to rally past the Hawkeyes, 7-4.

That meant Iowa had to play an extra game, an elimination game that began Sunday morning against North Carolina and lasted well into the afternoon. A Michael Seegers two-out triple scored the winning run in the top of the 13th inning as Iowa outlasted North Carolina, 6-5.

Pinch hitter Blake Guerin blooped a one-out single to left-center in the 13th for Iowa. Pinch runner Coy Sarsfield scooted around the bases and crossed the plate on Seegers’ big hit, a drive to center field just out of the grasp of diving North Carolina center fielder Mac Horvath.

Relief pitcher Will Christophersen retired the Tar Heels in order in the bottom of the 13th. He got the win with a brilliant outing in which he threw 4 2/3 hitless and scoreless innings.

Iowa led the game at one point, 5-2, but North Carolina (36-24) tied it with a pair of runs in the eighth and one in the ninth, coming on a Horvath solo home run to left. The Hawkeyes gave up three runs in the ninth inning of their first regional game against UNC, leaving the tying runner at third and go-ahead runner at second to win Friday night, 5-4.

With a very short pitching staff available, you kind of figured Iowa would have to win a high-scoring game later in the day against Indiana State to force a winner-take-all affair Monday.

The Hawkeyes led after four innings, 6-4, and it was tied going to the sixth, but Indiana State scored twice in the top of the seventh and never trailed. A huge three-run home run from Keegan Watson gave Indiana State an 11-7 lead.

Iowa pitchers hit Indiana State batters 10 times, which tied a single-game NCAA record.

Freshman Cade Obermueller from Iowa City High took the loss, pitching in a game for the first time since May 18. Starter Zach Voelker’s previous appearance was a one-inning job at the Big Ten Conference Tournament last week.

He hadn’t pitched for two weeks before that. Reliever Jack Young threw for the first time since May 18.

Brennen Dorighi, Brayden Frazier and Guerin homered for Iowa.

“We just had to keep playing and trying to find a way,” said Heller. “With our pitchers that were going into the game that hadn't been there in awhile, we told them to take a deep breath, take it one pitch at a time, and try to pound the strike zone. If we were going down, we wanted them to hit it, and, unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

“We saw flashes of it throughout, but it wasn't enough. We gave them too many free bases that created jams that we weren't able to work out of all of the time."

It will be interesting who moves on from this team and takes a shot at professional baseball.

That certainly will be outfielder Keaton Anthony, Iowa’s top hitter who was suspended the final month of the season with other presumably because of a criminal investigation in student-athlete gambling on sports. Dorighi will attempt to move on to pro ball, with starting pitcher Ty Langenberg eligible for this year’s Major League Baseball Draft.

Two very good starting pitchers in Marcus Morgan and Brody Brecht are not draft eligible and will return to what should be a very good 2023-24 Iowa team.

“We have a ton of guys back off of this team,” Heller said. “We have a chance to be pretty special next year."

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