The Iowa Hawkeye baseball team is in Omaha for Wednesday’s start of the Big Ten Tournament. The Hawkeyes battled through injuries and a tough schedule to qualify for the conference tournament for the first time since 2010. “We had to fight through some adversity –you lose your number one and number 3 pitcher late in the season — and you have to scrap and fight and claw to get into the tournament,” Iowa coach Rick Heller says. He says they are pleased to have led the league in hitting and hope to surprise some people in the tournament.
The Hawkeyes are the eighth seed and play regular season champion Indiana in the opening round. He says the pressure is on Indiana as they are expected to win the tournament and he says if his team goes out and plays a great game you never know what can happen.
Heller will send lefthander Sash Kuebel to the mound against the Hoosiers. He finished the regular season with a record of 6-4. “You’ve got to find a way to win those first two games…you lose one of the first two and it’s a tough road and you’d better have some pitching depth to be able to make it to the championship,” Heller says.
The Hawkeyes finished the regular season with a 29-21 record.