Newly ranked Hawks baseball tops Grand View 9-2

IOWA CITY - The Iowa baseball team took the field Tuesday against Grand View as a nationally ranked team for the first time in 25 years.

A 9-2 victory gave the Hawkeyes an 18-6 record, their best start since 1941, and came on the heels of a three-game sweep of then-No. 19 Indiana last weekend.

Coach Rick Heller points to pitching and defense.

'That's the reason we are where we are at,” he said. 'We play great defense day in and day out and, for the most part, we can run a lot of really good arms at you. Everything is really just shaping up the way we wanted it to from a pitching standpoint.”

Players say the addition of Coach Heller and his staff - now in their second year - has helped, too.

'The whole culture of the program has changed,” said senior second baseman and team captain Jake Mangler. 'New coaches came in and brought a great attitude to everything we do. Our work ethic has always been great, but when coach got here it went to another level. And, for us, that's important because we're not the most talented team. We're not the biggest, the strongest, but we work hard and do the little things right and that really helps us.”

Iowa overwhelmed NAIA Grand View.

Freshman Nick Gallagher of Iowa City got his first start Tuesday. He allowed one run while working into the fourth inning after the Hawkeyes had staked him to a 2-0 lead in the first.

Jared Mandel got the win in relief.

Shortstop Nick Roscetti had two hits for the Hawkeyes, and first baseman Grant Klenovich hit a triple and drove in two runs. Senior outfielder Eric Toole, the reigning Big Ten Player of the Week, walked three times and reached base four times - running his reached-base streak to 23 games. He hit .500 last week (8 of 16).

Iowa's hot start may be a surprise to some, but the players are confident they are no fluke.

'I feel like we are real contenders,” Toole said. 'We have proven that we can pitch, we can hit, and we can hang with and beat anybody when we play well.”

'We've just got to keep believing in ourselves if we want to continue this. We've got to keep playing the game that we are playing, and we can't get big heads. You know, we can't play down to some competition; we've just got to play our game.

'We've got to be who we are and we've got to just keep playing.”