1,098 days between tournament games in Omaha, 24 hours of rain delays and a whole lot of disappointment following the welcome back game at Charles Schwab Field.

“Wasn’t our day. (We) didn’t play very well,” said Coach Rick Heller. “We were not great offensively…We weren’t very efficient on the mound, too many free bases.”

The Hawkeyes put themselves behind the 8-ball in the tournament bracket with an opening loss to Penn State by a final score of 5-2. It was the Nittany Lions first win in the Big Ten Tournament since 2008. They now have to win five games in three days if they want to take home the Big Ten Tournament crown.

“When you’re in the situation we’re in where you’re trying to make a regional, you have to try to win every game,” said Heller. “We need to find a way to win some games here. I know these guys will come out and play hard tomorrow.”

Adam Mazur took the mound for the Hawkeyes, but he just wasn’t his normal self and that was partially due to back spasms coming and going throughout his outing. PSU threatened to strike first in the third inning with a couple runners on base and just one out. Mazur got Josh Spiegel to roll one to Brendan Sher at third base, but the ball got caught in the webbing of his glove and a double play ball turned into bases loaded. Anthony Steele followed with a two-run single, and a bad break put the Hawkeyes behind early.

Mazur battled through 5.0 innings, allowing PSU to score two runs on four hits, while striking out eight and walking four.

“You could kind of tell today when his back really started to stiffen up. He was missing up and he didn’t have the snap on his breaking ball,” said Coach Heller. “He toughed it out and gave us five innings, when a lot of guys might not have.”

Last week when Mazur was off, the Hawkeyes stepped up and covered him with 30 runs. Today, they struck out 15 times and put just 14 balls in play over nine innings. They mustered just two runs on two hits. Time and time again it felt like Iowa hitters were taking first pitch strike or good pitches later in the count.

“(Shingledecker) tries to get you to swing at his pitch,” said Heller. “If you watch him in his past outings, he can get a lot of outs on one, two pitches on fringy pitches you probably shouldn’t swing at.”

It felt like maybe the Iowa hitters were so focused on not getting themselves out early in at bats, that they let too many first pitch strikes go. They took 13 first pitch strikes for the game. Tyler Shingledecker was continually getting ahead in the count against Iowa hitters and put together a career best 5.2 innings to lead the Nittany Lions. He struck out eight Hawkeye batters and allowed just one earned run on two hits. Travis Luensmann followed the great start by Shingledecker and finished off the last 3.1 innings with seven strikeouts.

Iowa got a sacrifice fly from Kyle Huckstorf in the third inning to cut the lead to 2-1, but the big back breaker came in the sixth inning. Reliever Duncan Davitt retired the first two batters of the inning, but walked and hit a batter to put two on base for First Team All-Big Ten selection Matt Wood. Wood delivered a mammoth three-run home run to put the Nittany Lions up 5-1.

The Hawkeyes got one in the bottom of the inning on an errant throw from 3B Kyle Hannon, but the offense just could not get the wheels turning on a big rally. They struck out five times in the final two innings and Penn State was able to pull off the upset in the tournament opener.

“Offensively, we really just have to forget today,” said Izaya Fullard. “We know what kind of offense we are. We know we are capable of putting up runs and we just have to go in every at bat and be confident.”

Even with the disappointment from a loss, the Iowa pitching staff struck out 17 Penn State batters, which ties a Big Ten Tournament single game record.

With the loss, the Hawkeyes fall to 33-18 on the season and drop to #65 in the RPI rankings. Coming into the day, D1Baseball had Iowa in the First Four Out and now their backs are against the wall. The Hawkeyes will be back in action at 9:00am tomorrow morning where they will take on the loser of Rutgers and Purdue. Dylan Nedved will be on the mound, and it is a must win if Rick Heller and Co. want to keep their NCAA Tournament chances alive.