Michigan baseball drops game to Iowa, set to play Hawkeyes again Sunday afternoon

The Michigan Wolverines are set to get a double dose of the Iowa Hawkeyes, as the Wolverines lost to the Hawkeyes, 7-3, Saturday night. That result set up a second game with Iowa Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. eastern/1 p.m. local time in Omaha, Nebraska for the Big Ten Tournament.

The winner of Sunday’s game advances to the championship to play Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights dominated Indiana in the semifinals, 14-2, to advance to the championship round and now await either Michigan or Iowa.

Iowa’s pitching was the headline story Saturday evening, as Michigan’s bats had been on fire the first couple games in the tournament. The Hawkeyes gave up 10 hits, but limited the damage to just three runs — two coming in the sixth inning off a Jordon Rodgers two-RBI single, and one in the eighth inning from a Jimmy Obertop solo home run.

The Hawkeyes scored the first run of the game in the fifth inning, then two in the sixth and four in the seventh. The two runs in the sixth inning came from a two-RBI triple off the bat of Kyle Huckstorf. In the seventh, three Michigan relief pitchers gave up four singles and two hit batters to give the Hawkeyes an insurmountable lead.

The Wolverines will have to warm their bats up again if they want any shot at Rutgers in the championship game later today. That was the key to defeating Illinois and Maryland in the first two rounds of the tournament, and it has really been the key to any of their success all season long.

You can watch Michigan and Iowa at 2 p.m. eastern on Big Ten Network.