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IOWA CITY, Iowa — The University of Iowa baseball team no-hit Northern Illinois for seven innings before settling for a one-hitter in a 2-0 shutout victory Tuesday afternoon at Duane Banks Field. The shutout is the Hawkeyes’ first of the season.
The Hawkeyes scored both of their runs in the third inning and finished with eight hits in the game. Junior Mitchell Boe singled, redshirt junior Chris Whelan was hit by a pitch, and junior Robert Neustrom singled before senior Tyler Cropley’s sacrifice fly made the score 1-0.
With two outs, junior Lorenzo Elion hit a liner off the Huskie pitcher for a base hit, allowing Whelan to score to push the lead to 2-0.
Iowa utilized seven pitchers in the game with Trenton Wallace, Ben Probst, Jack Dreyer, and Shane Ritter no-hitting the Huskies over the first seven innings. The foursome did issue five walks.
The Huskies reached on a fielding error to start the eighth before freshman reliever Cam Baumann surrendered a single to Joe Jumonville to center field to end the no-hit bid. Senior Nick Nelsen entered to get Iowa out of the jam unscathed before Zach Daniels pitched a perfect ninth for his third save.
Jack Dreyer (1-2) recorded the win, tossing two shutout innings. It is Dreyer’s first career victory.
QUOTING HEAD COACH RICK HELLER
“It was an interesting game, we used seven pitchers and I thought they all had good stuff, but at some points lacked command. Nelsen worked out of a big jam for us in the eighth and Jack worked out of a self-inflicted jam.
“It was kind of a lifeless game, we did just enough to get some runs in the first five innings and had some decent at-bats, but they kind of went away. We got sloppy late with the two errors, but held on to get the win.”
OF NOTE…
- The Hawkeyes held the Huskies to one hit in Tuesday’s contest. It is the fewest hits Iowa has allowed this season and it is the team’s first shutout.
- Iowa recorded eight hits with Neustrom recording the only multi-hit day, finishing 2-for-4 for his 14th multi-hit game.
- The Hawkeyes are now 6-2 in midweek games and 12-3 at home this season.
UP NEXT
The Hawkeyes (22-11) travel to Minneapolis from April 20-22 for a three-game series against No. 25 Minnesota. Friday’s series opener is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. (CT).
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Stay up-to-date on all the happenings with the Iowa baseball program on social media via Twitter (@UIBaseball), Instagram/UIBaseball, and Facebook/IowaBaseball.
