9/2/2021 baseball Edit

Iowa announces baseball schedule

Rick Heller's Hawkeyes have a challenge schedule next year.

Kyle Huesmann

Staff Reporter

The 2022 Iowa Baseball schedule was announced earlier today, as scheduling goes back to normal for Coach Heller and his squad. The schedule includes a full slate of non-conference games rather than Big Ten teams only like last season. This gives the Hawkeyes and other Big Ten teams the chance to show their teams against other conferences and build up NCAA Tournament level resumes.

Iowa will participate in three early season tournaments, starting with the Swig and Swine Classic in Charleston, South Carolina to open the season on February 18th. They will face Air Force, Ball State and Bucknell during the opening weekend.

A week later, they will travel to Corpus Christi, Texas for the Kleberg Bank Classic, where they will face Pepperdine, UT Corpus Christi and Wichita State from February 25-27th.

The third and final tournament they will participate in is the Frisco Classic in Frisco, Texas. They will face Wichita State, Texas A&M and Washington State from March 4-6th.

The Hawkeyes home opener at Duane Banks Field will be on March 1st vs Loras College.

The non-conference slate will include three weekend series, including a road trip to perennial NCAA Tournament participant UC Irvine (March 11-13). That series will be a big one in terms of potentially grabbing a couple of NCAA Tournament level wins on the road. The Hawkeyes will host Merrimack (March 18-20) and 2021 NCAA Tournament participant Central Michigan (March 25-27) for three game series at Duane Banks Field.

The midweek games feature a bunch of teams from around the Midwest, including St Thomas, Grandview, Illinois State, Bradley, Milwaukee, Western Illinois and Illinois Chicago.

In Big Ten play, Iowa will host Illinois, Minnesota, Purdue and Indiana, while traveling to Michigan, Rutgers, Nebraska and Michigan State. They avoid series with Maryland, Ohio State, Penn State and Northwestern.

A more in-depth preview of the schedule will come closer to the beginning of the season. The big news is that the Hawkeyes will have a chance to play out of conference games once again after last year they were held out of the NCAA Tournament due to the Big Ten only scheduling hurting the teams RPI.