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Iowa completes second straight rally against Purdue, clinch the series

On3 imageby: Kyle Huesmann05/16/26HuesmannKyle

For the second consecutive night, the Iowa offense was asked to carry the torch for much of the game. The pitching staff eventually did its part, but faced with another early deficit, the Hawkeye bats came to life again banging out 17 hits en route to a 14-5 win over Purdue on Friday night at Principal Park. With the win, Iowa moves to 31-21 on the season and 14-15 in Big Ten play, while they will have a chance to log just their second sweep of the year on Saturday.

“Just keep playing the game. That’s something you’ve heard me say a million times. Just keep playing,” said Coach Rick Heller. “If you shut it down and waste your at-bat and throw them away, you don’t ever have an opportunity to come back like we have and like we did last week even against Nebraska.”

“It’s that time of year where you just go out and play as hard as you can. Play confident, together and just keep it rolling. See if we can do that tomorrow. We can be tired later.”

It was a topsy-turvy start on the mound for the Hawkeyes. Tyler Guerin made his fifth consecutive weekend start but put himself in some tough spots from the get-go, giving up three hits and four free bases, allowing Purdue to load the bases in each of the first two innings. With his back against the wall, Guerin escaped, getting Trey Swiderski to fly out in the 1st and striking out Avery Moore in the 2nd.

However, that magic didn’t last forever. A couple of free bases gave the Boilermakers two on, with two outs and the dam finally broke. Westin Boyle came through with an RBI single, followed by a Zach Zychowski two-run double and a Brandon Rogers RBI single to make it 4-0 Purdue. Guerin lasted just 2.2 innings, throwing 60 pitches to get eight outs.

Freshman Cole Moore was first out of the bullpen, and he played a similar role to that of Justin Hackett in the series opener. Slow the game down and give the offense a chance to cut into the deficit. He did that for the most part, retiring the first four batters he faced, before a couple of singles and a hit by pitch loaded the bases with no outs in the top of the 5th inning. In came Jaron Bleeker from the bullpen and he did his part to make a comeback possible. He got Zach Zychowski to bounce into a 6-4-3 double play and struck out Aaron Manias to end the inning. Although a run scored on the double play ball, through five innings, Purdue had left nine runners on base.

“(Guerin) made some pitches when he needed to keep himself out of big trouble. Then, with two outs in the third, you do that enough times, it’s going to come back and bite you, and it did and we fell behind,” said Heller. “I thought (Cole Moore) did a nice job of slowing the game down, eating an inning or two. He was throwing strikes, just gave up a couple of hits and then he hits a guy and we have bases loaded, nobody out and game in the balance.”

“Bleeker came in and got us a double play. Our middle infield guys turn the double play, and we only ended up giving up a run in that inning. That to me was the key to that game was Jaron minimizing there, giving us a chance to continue to come back.”

For the majority of his outing, Purdue starter Zach Erdman had the Hawkeye lineup held in check. A Purdue error got Iowa on the board in the 3rd inning, while Matthew Delgado came up with a two-out knock in the 4th, but through five innings, it was 5-2 Boilermakers. It looked like Erdman was headed towards a quality start, but just a couple of at-bats turned the tides.

Miles Risley led off the 6th inning, dropping in a high arching blooper into shallow right field that kicked past right fielder Avery Moore and into foul territory for a leadoff triple. Caleb Wulf followed with an RBI single, triggering Purdue head coach Greg Goff to come out of the dugout for an abrupt end to Erdman’s outing. The Hawkeyes, happy to see a new arm in the game, jumped on reliever Graham Kollen. Two at-bats later, the game was tied with a Mitch Wood RBI single and a Jaixen Frost two-run double. After a hit by pitch, Ben Swails put the Hawkeyes in front with an RBI infield single.

All of the sudden, the first‑inning jam, the second‑inning jam, the fifth‑inning escape with just a single run all mattered. Iowa led 6–5.

“The lefty (Erdman) was giving us a tough time, and I felt like, I don’t know, call it undisciplined or flat, just seemed like we were flat,” said Heller. “We were not stringing any quality at-bats together for an extended period of time and then we finally got to him a little bit. Once they took him out, we were pretty happy to see him go and they did a really nice job off the right-handers that they threw in the bullpen. We just got rolling and guys were stringing great at-bats together.”

The real crooked number came in the eighth inning. Leading by a single run, the Hawkeyes felt like they needed another run or two to feel comfortable heading into the 9th. How about eight more runs? Three hits off Purdue bullpen ace Jake Kramer and four more against Trevor Kester-Johnson broke the game open, while two more errors helped the cause. The biggest swing of the inning came off the bat of Jaixen Frost. The cherry of top, Frost belted a two-run home run off the suites in left field to make a nine-run lead.

Over his last eight games, Frost is batting .481, with 13 hits and eight extra base hits, including four home runs. Prior to that stretch, Jaixen was batting just .155, with 11 hits over 71 at-bats.

“Just looking for my pitch. I wanted to make sure that I was swinging at my pitches and the things I wanted to hunt,” said Frost. “Just playing for my guys and not necessarily pressing on myself. Want to make the ending of this season good for the guys that are going out.”

Meanwhile, on the mound, Jaron Bleeker was locking things down, more or less. Purdue had two on and one out in the 7th inning, but Zach Zychowski bounced into an inning ending 6U-3 double play. Then, in the 8th, the Boilers loaded the bases with just one out. Bleeker got CJ Richmond to lineout and then got Trey Swiderski to fly out to center to end the inning. Including the bases loaded jam he entered to face in the 6th inning, Jaron stranded seven runners on base and the lone run that scored with him on the mound was on the 6-4-3 double play that helped Iowa escape with limited damage in that 6th inning.

“Definitely a confidence boost. Most importantly, it gets the team fired up,” said Bleeker. “It’s really easy to go back into the dugout and produce some runs are you get out of jams like that. I thought everything was working well. Thought I filled the zone up for the most part and just gave my defense a chance to work. Credit to them, they always make the plays.”

Over his last two outings, Bleeker has not allowed an earned run over 10.1 innings, including eight strikeouts to four walks and nine hits allowed. With the Big Ten Tournament ahead, it’s a big bounce back after allowing six runs on 12 hits over 6.1 innings over two weekends against Indiana and Illinois. What has changed?

“Frankly, not a whole lot. I think maybe my confidence has gone up a little bit, but I do the same thing when I go out there. Just try to pound the zone, locate and I’m confident in all of my pitches and I know what they can do.”

“I think it was really good for his confidence to be able to go out there in front of a big crowd and perform like he did. I think that was a huge step and I couldn’t be happier with his progress from where he was at the end of last season until now. He’s pitched really well.”

The Hawkeyes, for the most part, have played good baseball over the latter half of the season. They won 11 of 14 prior to getting swept in Lincoln by Nebraska and have now taken the first two in a series against a regional caliber team in Purdue. They’ll need to win the Big Ten Tournament if they want to play beyond next week in Omaha, which is a longshot, but they’re playing the type of baseball you need to be playing if you want a shot to do it.

“The big message (for Saturday) is regardless of what happens on the mound, if we give up some early runs, we give up some runs here and there, we have to find a way to overcome it,” said Heller. “The great thing is that we’ve been challenging the pitching staff, if somebody has a bad outing, somebody’s got to step up and pick him up and we’ve been doing that a lot better as of late.”

Up Next: The Hawkeyes will go for just their second sweep of the season. Logan Runde is expected to get the start for Iowa, while it will be Austin Klug on the mound for the Boilermakers. First pitch is set for 1:02pm CT on BTN+.

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