Iowa baseball soared to the top of the Big Ten standings earlier this season thanks to dominant play in March and April. The Hawkeyes went 13-3 in March and followed that up with a 14-4 mark in April. The Hawks were flying high at that point, atop the Big Ten standings and in great position to challenge for an NCAA Tournament berth.
Unfortunately, the bottom dropped out on the Hawkeyes in May, as Iowa went just 2-9-1 over the final month of the regular season. That includes a 1-2 appearance in this week's Big Ten Tournament, which ended with Iowa's 9-3 defeat to UCLA on Saturday in the semifinals.
The 2025 Big Ten Tournament was the first played under a new format. Previously, the 13-team Big Ten played a double-elimination tournament among the top-eight finishers in the regular season. The new 17-team Big Ten (Wisconsin does not sponsor baseball) ditched the double-elimination tournament for a format that combined pool play (four three-team groups played two games apiece) with a single-elimination bracket for the semifinals and final.
Iowa, the 3-seed in the tournament, went 1-1 in its pool, beating 10-seed Rutgers 4-3 on Wednesday and losing 5-0 to 6-seed Indiana on Thursday. Those results (coupled with Rutgers' win over Indiana) left all three teams in the pool tied at 1-1, with the tiebreaker (highest seed) favoring Iowa.
The Hawkeyes drew 2-seed UCLA in Saturday's semifinal, a must-win game in a must-win tournament for Iowa. Unfortunately, the Hawkeyes were never able to find their footing in the game, with starting pitcher Aaron Savary struggling early. Savary gave up two hits in the second inning, but wriggled out of that jam. He wasn't so lucky in the third, as a pair of hits to open the inning ultimately led to a pair of UCLA runs on an RBI ground-out by Mulivai Levu and a sacrifice fly by Roman Martin.
The dam really broke in the fourth inning, though, as a lead-off walk and a pair of hits by Blake Balsz and Cashel Dugger made it 3-0 UCLA, before a sac fly by Phoenix Call extended the lead to 4-0. A 3-run home run by Roch Cholowsky blew the game open for the Bruins; at that point UCLA had seven runs while Iowa had just two hits.
"The game didn't go how we wanted it to," said head coach Rick Heller after the game. "With how the wind was blowing today at the ballpark, we were hoping to keep it close until late innings and see if we could find a way to get one. But, UCLA is a very good team and had a great day."
Iowa finally got on the board in the fifth inning courtesy of a 2-run homer by Andy Nelson, but that was the only real highlight of the day for the Hawkeye bats. Iowa finished the game with just five hits and three drawn walks. Nelson was Iowa's best hitter, going 2-of-3 with a home run and two RBI; pinch hitter Connor Hennings knocked in Iowa's third run in the top of the ninth with an RBI single.
On the mound, Savary lasted just 3.1 innings, allowing seven earned runs on nine hits and a walk, while striking out just one opposing batter. The bullpen did limit the damage to just two more runs on five hits (plus four issued walks) over 4 2/3 innings, led by two innings from Brant Hague in which he recorded three strikeouts while giving up a run on two hits.
The loss continued Iowa's misery against west coast opponents this season. In Big Ten play, Iowa went 21-5 against non-west coast league opponents this year, but just 1-6 against Washington, Oregon, and UCLA. Throw in Iowa's two non-conference series against Washington State and Oregon State and the Hawkeyes went just 2-11-1 against opponents from the Pacific time zone this year.
The defeat also dropped Iowa to 33-21-1 overall and 2-10-1 in the Hawkeyes' last 13 games. Iowa sat at 76th in the RPI rankings before Saturday and a loss to UCLA won't help that figure.
While Iowa went 21-9 in Big Ten play and finished just a game out of the regular season championship, the overall resume does not provide any realistic hope for an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament when the bracket is announced on Monday. Iowa needed to win the Big Ten Tournament and claim the conference's auto-bid; that did not happen and as a result the Hawkeyes will miss the NCAA Tournament for the seventh time in the past eight seasons -- a disappointing end to a season that seemed to have great promise just a month ago.
