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The Iowa baseball team continues to seek the ever-elusive Big Ten Tournament title following a subpar 2009 season.
What you should know
What initially began as a promising season for the Iowa baseball team turned out to be a less-than-ideal campaign in 2009.
Early on, the Hawkeyes seized signature victories against then-No. 25 Louisville and conference powers Michigan and Purdue, but suddenly derailed midway through the season. During that time, Iowa went on a nine-game losing streak.
But even after sinking to the near bottom of the conference, the Hawkeyes remained upbeat in pursuing an appearance in the postseason Big Ten Tournament.
“College baseball, maybe more than any other sport, you have ups and downs, but the biggest thing is you don’t want your downs to be too long,” Iowa head coach Jack Dahm said. “There’s nothing fun about a losing streak, but I really believe in these guys. They’ve put in a lot of time, a lot of effort.”
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Whom you should know
A year ago, Iowa boasted the Big Ten’s best recruiting class. Yet in spite of depending on a group of rising prospects in the coming season, the Hawkeyes will likely look to a pair of trusty third-year players in catcher Tyson Blaser and Kurtis Muller.
Blaser, a redshirt junior-to-be, underwent season-ending hand surgery in March to repair a torn ligament in his thumb and received a hardship year.
Meanwhile, Muller has proven to be both an offensive and defensive staple for the Hawkeyes since being a Big Ten Freshman of the Year candidate in 2008.
“It’s just going out there competing on every pitch,” Muller said of his developing success. “If you do that, everything else will fall into place, so it’s just trying to set that positive role in the dugout or out on the field every pitch.”
Main rivals
With Northern Iowa electing to drop its program due to budget cuts, Iowa now stands as the only Division-I team in the state.
However, the Hawkeyes have a myriad of rivals in the Big Ten as they seek to capture their first conference title to earn a berth in the NCAA Tournament.
Since 1939, Iowa has only been crowned regular-season champion five times and finished with the league’s best record once in 1990. The program has also been to the College World Series once in 1972.
“Every Big Ten weekend is a big weekend for us,” freshman catcher Dallas Burke said. “Maybe in the coming years, we’ll really have something started with the program, have a good, healthy rivalry started.”
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