Iowa Baseball Season Comes to End

BOX SCORE

Iowa put together the longest day, but couldn’t stay alive in the NCAA baseball tournament.

The Hawkeyes advanced to the regional championship game before losing to top seed Indiana State 11-8 on Sunday night.

Iowa finished the season 44-16, tying for the most wins in program history.

The Hawkeyes were going to need to win twice on Sunday and once on Monday to get out of the Terre Haute Regional after losing to Indiana State on Saturday. It took them 13 innings to beat North Carolina 6-5 on Sunday afternoon, then two hours later they were back to face the Sycamores.

It was too much.

Iowa led 6-4 after four innings before the Sycamores took control with two runs in the fifth inning, two in the sixth, and three in the seventh.

The Hawkeyes got home runs from Brennen Dorighi, Brayden Frazier and Blake Guerin, and Michael Seegers and Raider Tello had three hits. But six Iowa pitchers hit 10 Sycamores with pitches, while walking six on what proved to be a wild night on the mound. The six pitchers combined for 193 pitches, with only 107 for strikes.

Cade Obermueller (2-1) was the losing pitcher, allowing four runs in two innings.

The Sycamores nicked the Hawkeyes in their two two-run innings. One run scored on a hit-by-pitch with the bases loaded, two came on fielders’ choice plays, and one on a bases-loaded walk.

Iowa got to within 8-7 in the bottom of the sixth with Dorighi singled in Cade Moss, but Seegers was thrown out trying to score the tying run. The Sycamores then took control of the game back with Keegan Watson’s three-run home run in the top of the seventh.

The Hawkeyes stayed alive in the tournament by defeating North Carolina for the second time in the weekend.

Guerin’s one-out single in the 13th inning gave Iowa the chance to break the tie. Coy Sarsfield came in as a pinch runner with two outs, and hustled around the bases to score the go-ahead run when Seegers’ triple split the left-center field gap.

Will Christophersen then capped his brilliant work out of the bullpen with a 1-2-3 bottom of the inning. Christophersen pitched 4 ⅔ innings, not allowing a hit while walking two and striking out four.

Iowa carried a 5-2 lead into the eighth inning, but North Carolina got two runs in the eighth and one in the ninth to send the game to extra innings.

The Tar Heels’ rally came after Iowa pitcher Ty Langenberg had another strong postseason start. Langenberg struck out six and scattered seven hits over seven innings.

Langenberg gave up back-to-back singles to start the eighth and was replaced by Jack Whitlock, who surrendered a two-run double to Dylan King in the inning and then gave up a solo home run to Mac Horvath in the ninth.

Dorighi had the biggest hit for the Hawkeyes early in the game, a three-run home run in the fifth that put Iowa up 4-2. Dorighi had four hits in the game.