The regional road looks manageable for Iowa Hawkeyes baseball team

CEDAR RAPIDS — The draw. It seems pretty good for the Iowa Hawkeyes baseball team.

Iowa is in an NCAA regional at Terre Haute, Ind. It’s the lone site of the 16 that is in the Midwest, only about five hours from Iowa City.

Indiana State is the host and top-seeded team. The Sycamores are good, winning the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.

But Iowa beat ISU way back in February in the season opener. In extra innings.

North Carolina is the third seed in the regional, playing the second-seeded Hawkeyes in a 6 p.m. (CT) game Friday (ACC Network). The Tar Heels are a traditional power, but this particular team is “only” 35-22 overall and finished 14-14 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

And UNC will be without injured starting outfielder Vance Honeycutt. Wright State (39-21) is the fourth seed in the regional, making its third consecutive NCAA tournament appearance.

With all the above information, it’s not difficult for you to think there’s a realistic chance Iowa can negotiate its way through this double-elimination regional and find its way to a super regional next weekend. Coach Rick Heller tends to agree.

“I would have told you that anywhere we want,” Heller said. “But I do think if we play like we can and pound the strike zone like we’ve done recently, this team can go a long way. We also know baseball is a funny game, and you’ve got to catch some breaks, and sometimes you do, and sometimes you don’t. I think we will be as prepared as we can be. I think they’ll go down there and make a good run, but you just never know.”

This is the first NCAA tournament trip for the Hawkeyes (42-14) since 2017. Iowa is coming off a runner-up finish at last weekend’s Big Ten Conference Tournament, losing in the championship game to Maryland, 4-0.

It’s a team that has been able to do offensive damage throughout the lineup, even without top hitter Keaton Anthony. It’s a team that has a pretty good starting pitching rotation in Marcus Morgan, Brody Brecht and Ty Langenberg, as well as a bullpen that has been primarily solid.

Morgan is expected to start Friday.

“For sure,” first baseman Brennen Dorighi said, when asked if he felt going deep in the Big Ten Tournament will help Iowa as it plays even more important baseball now. “I think that, as well as the way Rick sets up our schedule, with the Round Rock tournament early (in the season) and obviously the super regional feel at Texas Tech, that is huge for us. We have kind of played in a round-robin setting, we’ve played at a setting in a neutral site, with a lot of fans, against good teams. We can lean on that as well to make sure we are ready for this weekend.”

Every regional and super regional is double elimination. The winners of Friday’s two games play each other Saturday, as will the losers of those games.

The tournament progresses from there.

Iowa felt it may have been snubbed the past couple of years, especially last year, when it came to not receiving an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament. The Big Ten has three regional teams in Iowa, Maryland and Indiana.

“Really happy for this group,” Heller said. “They took it out of the (selection) committee’s hands, and that’s what we set out to do this fall. What can we do to make sure that we’re still playing in June? There is a part of me that you are thinking about those last two teams that didn’t get the call and felt like they should have. We’ll be playing for those guys, too.”

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