Iowa Baseball Falls to Indiana State

Hawkeyes Bullpen Gives Up Late Lead at NCAA Regional

Photo - @IndStBaseball (Twitter)

BOX SCORE

Brody Brecht was brilliant for seven innings.

But Iowa’s bullpen couldn’t close out Indiana State. And now the Hawkeyes face an elimination game.

Indiana State struck for five runs in the eighth inning to defeat Iowa 7-4 on Saturday night in the Terre Haute Regional of the NCAA baseball tournament.

The Hawkeyes (43-15), the No. 2 seed in the regional, will play No. 3 seed North Carolina (36-23) in Sunday’s 11 a.m. elimination game. The winner of that game will play Indiana State later in the day, needing to beat the top seed Sycamores twice — once on Sunday and once on Monday — to advance to next week’s Super Regional round.

It will be the second time the Hawkeyes and Tar Heels have played each other in the tournament — Iowa won Friday’s game 5-4.

Brecht kept the Sycamores off balance in one of the best starts of his career. The sophomore struck out eight while allowing just two hits and walking four.

But Brecht left after seven innings and having thrown 108 pitches, leaving up to the Hawkeyes’ bullpen, which had saved Friday’s late rally by the Tar Heels.

Reliever Jared Simpson had trouble with his control opening the inning. Simpson hit Randal Diaz with a pitch to open the inning, then after getting a strikeout of Josue Urdaneta gave up back-to-back singles to Luis Hernandez and Adam Pottinger to load the bases. Simpson then walked Mike Sears to force in a run.

Luke Llewellyn replaced Simpson and struck out Parker Stinson for the second out. But Miguel Rivera and Grant Magill hit back-to-back two-run doubles, and the Sycamores were up 7-4.

Iowa tried to rally in the ninth. Kyle Huckstorf walked to open the inning. Then Brayden Frazier hit a deep fly ball to left field that was caught by a leaping Pottinger before it could get out of the ballpark. Cade Moss then hit into a double play to end the game.

Iowa opened the scoring with a run in the first inning, when Raider Tello’s single scored Sam Petersen.

Down 2-1, the Hawkeyes tied the game with a run in the fourth when Michael Seegers’ single scored Tello.

Iowa took a 4-2 lead in the sixth. Sam Hojnar’s double scored Brennen Dorighi, then Hojnar scored on Huckstorf’s sacrifice fly.

Tello had a three-hit game for the Hawkeyes, who had seven hits.

Connor Fenlong (11-2) was the winning pitcher, going eight innings for the Sycamores. Jared Spencer got his seventh save.

North Carolina stayed alive with a 5-0 win over Wright State earlier in the day.