Iowa entered Sunday's Big Ten Tournament Championship Game against Maryland as one of the hottest teams in the Big Ten. The Hawkeyes went 13-3 to end the regular season, then won their first three Big Ten Tournament games by a combined margin of 27-7. The Iowa bats were on fire and the pitching was putting opponents in a vise.
Unfortunately, in Sunday's title game decider between 3-seed Iowa and 1-seed Maryland, those bats ran out of juice and the pitching suffered a few breakdowns. That was enough for the Terrapins to get a 4-0 victory and add a Big Ten Tournament championship to their Big Ten regular season title this year.
RECAP
The story for Iowa in this game was one of early missed opportunities, followed by a lack thereof. Iowa had runners in scoring position in each of the first four innings; the Hawkeyes scored zero runs from those chances. They simply could not get a key hit when they needed it, too often getting weak contact on the ball and/or on the ground for an easy out.
Iowa ended the game with six runners left on base and with an 0/7 mark at the plate with runners in scoring position. What's even worse is that those numbers were unchanged after the fourth inning.
Only two more Iowa hitters got on base after the fourth inning -- Brayden Frazier drew a one-out walk in the seventh inning and Raider Tello had a lead-off single in the ninth inning. Those opportunities didn't amount to anything because the very next batters after Frazier and Tello each hit into double plays, ending threat and/or the inning.
Overall, Iowa managed just five hits in the game, with just two of those coming after the second inning. At first Iowa couldn't get clutch hits to drive in runs, but then Iowa just couldn't get hits, period. Raider Tello led Iowa with two hits, a single and a double, in his four at-bats.
The Hawkeye pitching staff had stifled Michigan (twice) and Indiana en route to this Big Ten Tournament Championship Game appearance, but Maryland looked to be their toughest test yet. The Terrapins led the Big Ten in nearly every hitting category and boast one of the most potent lineups in the country, including a pair of hitters with 20+ home runs this season, Big Ten Player of the Year Matt Shaw and Nick Lorusso. With Iowa treating Sunday's game like a bullpen game and limiting any one pitcher's usage ahead of next weekend's NCAA Tournament, could the Hawkeyes keep the Maryland bats in check?
The answer was... sort of. Iowa held the Terrapins to four runs on six total hits, while also dealing out four walks (and a wild pitch). In the aggregate, those are not terrible numbers; if the Iowa offense had been able to come close to its season average of 8.6 runs per game, the Hawkeyes would have been in fine shape today.
Iowa held Maryland to just one hit and zero runs in the first four innings of the game. The potent Terrapin lineup could not catch up to the Hawkeye pitchers in the early going, though the Terps did put a scare into Iowa in the third inning, when they loaded the bases on two walks and a hit batter. Iowa reliever Jack Whitlock, who specializes in getting the Hawkeyes out of those situations, came in and ended the threat with a strikeout. Opponents are now 0/8 against him this season when the bases are loaded.
The fifth inning was the only inning when Iowa's pitching staff cracked. Jacob Orr drew a leadoff walk from Whitlock, which was followed by Kevin Keister blasting a ball over the left-field fence. Three batters later, Lorusso hit his 23rd home run of the season. Whitlock got out of the inning without any further damage, but the 3-0 lead would be all Maryland needed.
Maryland added a fourth run in the sixth inning when Orr singled to score Eddie Hacopian after a leadoff double. Maryland only got one more hit in the seventh and eighth innings, but the production from the fifth and sixth innings was more than enough to carry the day.
Iowa used five pitchers in the game, led by Marcus Morgan, who started Iowa's Big Ten Tournament opener against Michigan. He got Iowa off to a strong start, allowing just one hit and no runs in his two innings of work. Whitlock got Iowa out of a bases-loaded jam in the third inning, but he was also the pitcher who got tagged by Maryland with what turned out to be the game-winning home runs in the fifth inning.
No Iowa pitcher threw more than 37 pitches in the game, so everyone should be fresh for next weekend's regional games in the NCAA Tournament. Allowing four runs on six hits isn't a perfect performance by the Iowa pitching staff, by any means, but it's far from a terrible one, either. The lack of offensive production was what really doomed Iowa in this game.
UP NEXT
The only thing remaining for Iowa is to discover its postseason destination. The field for the 2023 NCAA Baseball Tournament is set to be revealed on Monday, May 29 at 11 AM CT on ESPN2. Iowa ranked 29th in RPI after yesterday's games and a neutral-site loss to Maryland shouldn't change that ranking much.
The questions for the Hawkeyes should be "which regional site are they headed to and who are they playing" rather than "are they in the field of 64?" That's a solid position to be in with the regular season in the books.
