Rick Heller

The University of Iowa baseball team hit seven home runs and led 8-0 and 13-6 before seeing Missouri rally for a 17-16 extra-inning victory Tuesday night at Duane Banks Field.

The two teams combined for 33 runs, 40 hits, eight home runs, and 16 extra-base hits in a game were the wind was blowing out.

“We had great at-bats up-and-down the lineup. It was nice to jump out to the lead like we did. Unfortunately, we didn’t pitch very well today, especially the guys in the middle innings”, said Iowa coach Rick Heller. “Once Missouri got hot, it was a lot of ground balls finding the holes. We weren’t able to stop it, but we didn’t quit. We had clutch at-bats and a lot of guys stepped up. I don’t fault our guys effort. We just have to put this behind us and get ready for tomorrow.”

The Tigers took the outright lead in the 11th on RBIs from Chris Cornelius and Zach Hanna. Iowa closed the gap to 17-16 in the 11th when Chris Whelan hit a solo home run and Iowa had the winning run on base, but reliever Luke Anderson got Austin Guzzo to ground out to end the wild, crazy night in Iowa City.

Freshman Cam Baumann (1-1) suffered the loss, allowing two runs on six hits over 1 1/3 innings. Iowa used eight pitchers in the game. Freshman Trenton Wallace was strong in his start, scattering three hits over three innings before departing with arm tightness in the fourth.

The Hawkeyes are 26-15 and host Western Illinois tonight in a 6:05p.m. start.