Iowa Baseball Getting Back to Work

Hawkeyes Preparing for Challenge from ACC's North Carolina

Iowa Baseball players look out from the dugout during a game against Indiana on May 19, 2022 at Banks Field in Iowa City, Iowa. (Rob Howe/HawkeyeNation.com)

Iowa was safely in the NCAA baseball tournament, and the Hawkeyes knew that.

Still, as the bracket was being announced Monday and team after team was being called and the Hawkeyes weren’t on the board, there was a little bit of nervousness.

But the Hawkeyes are in, playing as the No. 2 seed in the Terre Haute Regional. Iowa (42-14) will face No. 3 seed North Carolina (35-22) at 7 p.m. Friday at Indiana State’s Bob Warn Field.

Indiana State (42-15), the Missouri Valley Conference champion, is the top seed in the bracket, and will play Horizon League champion and No. 4 seed Wright State (39-21) at 1 p.m. Friday.

It took a long time during Monday’s selection show for Iowa’s name to be announced — the Hawkeyes were the 60th team shown on the 64-team bracket — which certainly led to some nerves since last year’s team thought it had a chance to get in and didn’t.

“Based off the past, my past experiences and the experiences they’ve had here at Iowa, the further it went on, the more nervous people got,” said first baseman Brennen Dorighi, who was at Wofford last season when that team with a 42-16 record, was left out of the field. “In the end, it worked out.”

The Hawkeyes had built a quality resumé that was recognized by the committee, and their bid was strengthened by getting to the Big Ten Tournament championship game on Sunday before they lost 4-0 to Maryland.

“We were just happy and anxious to know where we’re going,” coach Rick Heller said. “Now we can get back to work and develop a plan and be ready to go on Friday.

“It feels great. I’m really happy for this group. They took it out of the committee’s hands, and that’s what we set out to do in the fall, ‘What can we do to make sure that we’re still playing in June?’ There is still a part of me that has been thinking about those last couple of teams that didn’t get the call, and felt like they should have. We’ll be playing for those guys too.”

It’s a return to a familiar spot for Heller, who coached at Indiana State for four seasons before coming to Iowa.

Heller is good friends with Indiana State head coach Mitch Hannahs, and associate head coach Brian Smiley was on Heller’s staff with the Sycamores.

“Nobody likes to play against your friends, people you care for and people you love,” Heller said. “I love Terre Haute, and I have so many good friends there. So many players that I coached there, I love those guys. It’s going to be tough that way.”

Heller visited the Indiana State campus in early April, when he stopped at Terre Haute on his way from Iowa’s mid-week game at Bradley to the weekend Big Ten series against Indiana.

“For me it’s going to be a little weird,” Heller said. “But when the lights come on, we’re going to go. Once the games start, you compete, play hard, and let the chips fall where they may. I was personally hoping not to be going back to Terre Haute, for the reasons I just said, not for anything else. But that’s the hand we’re dealt, and we’ll go. For the rest of the guys, they’re just excited to be back in the tournament and will be ready to go.”

The Hawkeyes will have a chance to get back into a normal practice routine as they get ready for the tournament opener against the Tar Heels.

North Carolina has a .285 team batting average and averages 7.5 runs per game. Tomas Frick led the Tar Heels with a .329 batting average. Hunter Stokley hit .323, and three other players hit above .300.

Iowa is coming off the shutout to Maryland, but also needed a comeback win against Indiana early in the Big Ten Tournament.

“I think we need to put some good at-bats out on the field, get out early,” said Dorighi. “I think for us, we have to jump on them right away, put our brand of baseball out there as soon as possible.”