Hawkeyes routed by North Dakota State on Wednesday night
The North Dakota State baseball team was supposed to be heading to Western Illinois this weekend. A midweek game in Iowa City was just going to be a stop on their way to Macomb. However, when WIU left the Summit for the OVC, that changed the schedule for the Bison. Instead, they are hosting a three-game series in Fargo this weekend. That means, they were going to make the 16-hour round trip to Duane Banks Field for a single game. They made it well worth the trip, as the clubbed 20 hits in a 21-14 upset win over the Hawkeyes on Wednesday night. It’s just the second time in program history that NDSU has defeated Iowa.
“The message (to the team) is you can’t just walk out of the locker room and think that’s okay,” said Coach Rick Heller. “It’s not okay, at all. The pitching tonight was as bad as I’ve seen. When you combine 20 hits with that many free bases, you don’t give yourself a chance to come back.”
That was the story of the night. Hawkeye pitchers were out of the strike zone way too often, giving up ten walks, three hit by pitches and three wild pitches. They averaged 24.7 pitches per inning and threw 57.2% of their 222 total pitches for strikes. However, even when Hawkeye pitchers were in the zone, the NDSU hitters made them pay. The Bison racked up 13 extra base hits, including eight doubles and four home runs. For reference, they had not had more than ten extra base hits in an entire series coming into this game.
“When you’re as uncompetitive as we were tonight with some of our misses and then when you do throw it over the zone, it’s down the middle and they know what’s coming because you can’t throw a strike with anything else, that’s the result you’re going to see,” said Heller. “That’s what we saw tonight. That North Dakota State team came out with good intent to beat us.”
With a couple of uneven performances on the mound on Tuesday against Illinois State and ten more arms used in the loss tonight, it’s almost certain that some of those pitchers that struggled this week will find themselves pitching against Northwestern. Rick Heller was very matter of fact with what has to happen.
“I’d like to see them get a lot better. It’s time to get better. I mean, we’re 40 games into it and we need to get better. We’ve got some guys that just haven’t.”
The Hawkeyes were punched in the mouth right off the bat in the top of the first inning. The Bison loaded the bases and Colten Becker cleared them with a grand slam. A couple of hits later and a Will Busch two-run double made it 6-0 NDSU before Iowa even got to see a pitch. In the sixth inning, Becker hit his second home run of the game on a night where the Bison clubbed four home runs. NDSU scored multiple runs in six innings, including six in the first and five in the sixth inning.
Offensively, the Iowa bats did enough to get them a win on most nights. While they only managed eight hits, six of them went for extra bases, including a two-run home run from Reese Moore and a grand slam from Andy Nelson. The Hawkeyes, for the most part, made good decisions at the plate earning ten walks and three hit by pitches. Four players logged multi-RBI games, with five players reaching base at least three times.
“Offensively, we fought back. We did what we needed to do. We drew the walks, hit by pitches, did what we had to do to set the table,” said Heller. “Just didn’t get the big hits like they did in three different innings to put some big numbers up there, but we just kept coming back. That’s the positive side and great to see that we didn’t just lay down and take the run-rule.”
Unfortunately, in a game where the Hawkeyes put up 14 runs, they still were just a big hit or two away from having a chance to win. In the bottom of the fourth, the Hawkeyes had two runs on the board and the bases loaded, but Reese Moore grounded into a 4-6-3 inning ending double play. Then, trailing by five runs in the eighth, Iowa loaded the bases with nobody out. However, NDSU turned to their closer Joey Danielson and a Cade Moss sacrifice fly was the only damage that was done. Two times with bases loaded, less than two outs and just one run scored between the two chances.
Trailing 18-14 going into the top of the ninth, a zero on the board would have given the Hawkeyes a shot going into their last at-bat. Instead, the inning was emblematic of the entire night. The Bison got back-to-back singles from Garret Hill and Colton Becker, plating three runs to make it 21-14. Everytime the pitching staff had a chance to stop the bleeding and five the offense a chance, NDSU put up another big inning.
“It was super disappointing to see so few guys step up and find a way to stop the bleeding and give us a chance down the stretch,” said Heller. “We were answering back. If we could have stuck a couple of zeros up there, it would have changed things.”
“Tip your hat to NDSU, they pounded the ball all night. They had a great night and the bottom part of the order torched us, really up and down the lineup they were on the barrel all night long.”
Up Next, the Hawkeyes will host the Northwestern Wildcats for a three-game series this weekend. First pitch on Friday is set for 6:05pm CT on BTN+.
