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Capital City Sweep: Hawkeyes dominate Purdue

On3 imageby: Kyle Huesmann05/17/26HuesmannKyle

The Iowa Baseball team was in need of some rejuvenation before postseason plays gets underway. They had been playing some of their best baseball of the season, winning 11 of 14 games prior to the Nebraska series. However, getting swept by the rival Huskers was a setback. The Hawkeyes came into this weekend with a goal of recapturing some of the momentum loss with the Big Ten Tournament on the horizon.

Sweeping a regional caliber opponent will do wonders for a team’s momentum. After taking the first two from Purdue behind big offensive efforts, the Hawkeyes kept things rolling in the series finale on Saturday. They tallied 19 more hits, defeating the Boilermakers 15-9 for just their second sweep of the season. With the win, Iowa moves to 32-21 overall and finishes 15-15 in Big Ten play.

“It was huge as far as getting the momentum back and heading into the tournament with a lot of confidence. I think that we’ve done that for sure,” said head coach Rick Heller. “They’re definitely going to be excited to keep rolling. Once you get the ball rolling like this, you don’t want to stop.”

The Boilermakers were able to score first for the third consecutive day, going up 1-0 in the 1st inning on an RBI infield single from Avery Moore. That lead did not last long, as Caleb Wulf answered with an RBI double to tie the game in the bottom of the inning. Then, it was crooked number time for the Iowa offense. They plated five runs in the 2nd inning, with Miles Risley delivering the big blow, a grand slam to make it 6-1 Hawkeyes. It was his first of two home runs on the day, slugging his 7th and 8th of the season.

“I was just hunting out a heater and the first home run; he hung a slider. I saw it well and I banged it,” said Risley. “The second one, heater down and in and just got my barrel to it…I’ve been really confident in my abilities (lately) and we’re kind of on a roll as a team.”

The coaching staff opted to bring Logan Runde out of the bullpen, giving true freshman Brady Ferguson the start, but he lasted just five batters. He gave one hit, the Moore RBI infield single, and issued three free bases, but did get a 4-6-3 double play. Brolan Frost was first out of the bullpen but had to work around a bases loaded jam in the second inning, getting Sam Flores to fly out to end the frame.

Finally, the pitching staff got some stability in the form of Logan Runde. Entering in the top of the third, Runde gave the staff 5.0 innings, allowing five runs, four earned on six hits. A couple of the hits he allowed were loud, including two-run home runs from Aaron Manias (4th) and Jackson Bessette (7th), but he got outs and kept the Iowa lead intact.

“Rough start, lots of free bases, but we minimized again and we were fortunate and didn’t really give up a big inning,” said Heller. “Runde came in and gave us five innings, and it was exactly what we needed, somebody to slow the game down, but give us some real innings, so we didn’t have to go inning-by-inning like a midweek game, which is what we would have had to do if Logan wasn’t sharp.”

It wasn’t a clean weekend on the mound by any stretch of the imagination. The pitching staff gave up 21 runs on 38 hits and issued 21 free bases. However, they were able to minimize damage in many situations and got out of their fair share of jams. They stranded 34 Boilermakers on the bases over three games, averaging 1.26 stranded runners per inning for the series. Far from perfect, but credit where credit is due, they found a way.

“(The pitchers) got us out of some trouble and double plays were big for us this weekend which was great. They did enough and that’s kind of how it’s been all year if you’ve watched us play a lot. We have to outscore people sometimes and minimize as best we can. If a guy doesn’t have a good outing, have the next guy try to pick him up and we were able to do that today.”

As hot as the Iowa offense was, Purdue still might have struggled to win even if they came through with a couple of clutch hits with runners on base. Seven Boilermakers took to the mound at Principal Park and four of them left with multiple runs allowed attached to their stat line. The Hawkeyes scored three in the 5th, one in the 6th, three in the seventh and two more in the 8th. Joey Nerat came through with three hits and four RBI’s, while he also scored on a wild pitch. Miles Risley had a solo shot in the 6th, while Ben Swails added the exclamation point, a two-run home run in the 8th to make it 15-6 Hawkeyes.

“It was a lot of the same things. Guys were disciplined and patient, got pitches that they could hit and hit them when they got them,” said Heller. “That’s been the peaks and valleys with our offense at times this year. When we weren’t going well, certain portions of the lineup were getting pitches, but just weren’t hitting them. It was a good weekend for us. Things were really clicking on offense one through nine getting good at-bats from everybody.”

“It’s super contagious and I know every single one of us is super confident right now and we’re really excited to get it going at the Big Ten Tournament,” said Risley. “We’re all just rooting for each other and pulling the same rope and we’re super confident in our abilities. Just coming to the ballpark with the same mindset every single day and just letting the chips fall where they may.”

The Boilermakers “rallied” with three runs in the 9th, including a two-run home run from Sergio DeCello, but they still came up well short. Despite falling via sweep to Nebraska last weekend, Iowa will head to Omaha for the Big Ten Tournament having won 14 of their last 20 games. They’re hoping to stay hot needing to win the whole thing to make the NCAA Tournament.

“You want to keep playing and playing together. There’s a lot of seniors, especially on the position player side that don’t want this season to end,” said Heller. “We’ll go over there and try to get hot and stay hot and see if we can make some noise over in Omaha.”

Up Next: The Hawkeyes will head to Omaha for the Big Ten Tournament at Charles Schwab Field. Iowa has earned the 8 seed and will face off against 9 seed Illinois on Tuesday in the opening round. First pitch is set for approximately 1:00pm CT on the Big Ten Network.

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