Maryland Tops Hawkeyes for B1G Crown

Terrapins down Iowa, 4-0, in Sunday's Tourney Title Game

Iowa put itself into position to win the Big Ten baseball tournament by winning its first three games.

Getting that fourth win, and the title, didn’t happen.

The Hawkeyes, the third seed in the tournament, lost to Maryland 4-0 on Sunday in the winner-take-all championship game at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha.

Iowa (42-14) strengthened its already stout NCAA tournament resumé with its week in the tournament, defeating Indiana once and Michigan twice to reach the title game.

The top seed Terrapins (41-14), though, silenced the Hawkeyes.

Iowa coach Rick Heller, though, felt it was an important week for his team with a bigger prize ahead.

“I think being in the environment that we were in today will make next week much more normal for our guys regardless of the outcome today,” Heller said. “It was super beneficial to have the awesome crowd that came out for us. It put our guys in a different situation than what they are normally in and any time you are put in a situation like that it's a positive and it's going to help us grow.”

It was going to be a game when Heller had to build a pitching bridge to get to 27 outs. Starting pitcher Marcus Morgan was working on four days' rest, and he pitched just two innings, allowing one hit and striking out two.

Maryland got three runs off reliever Jack Whitlock, and one run off Luke Llewellyn.

The Hawkeyes got three hits and a walk off Maryland starter Ryan Van Buren and a hit and two walks off reliever Andrew Johnson in the first three innings, but couldn’t produce any runs.

“We had a lot of missed opportunities early in the game,” Heller said. “We needed to do some damage against Van Buren and Johnson when we had runners in scoring position, but we hit a few line drives right at the right fielder.”

Iowa had just five hits, all singles. Raider Tello had two hits, while Brennen Dorighi, Kyle Huckstorf and Brayden Frazier each had one.

Maryland reliever Kenny Lippman was the winning pitcher, striking out two and not allowing a hit in three innings.”

“The bad luck morphed into pressing,” Heller said. “When Lippman came in he really pounded the zone. The umpire had a bigger zone today and we weren't able to get into counts that we wanted to, and Maryland made pitches when they needed to. They didn't falter, and we weren't able to do any damage. We had more traffic on the bases, but they did the damage with the long ball.”

GAME NOTES: The NCAA tournament selection show is at 11 a.m. Monday on ESPN2. … This was the third time Iowa was shut out this season. … The Hawkeyes were 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. … Huckstorf, Michael Seegers, and Sam Petersen were named to the All-Tournament Team.