Iowa Baseball entered the Big Ten Tournament on a downward trajectory. They lost the final two regular-season series to Oregon State and Oregon and the chance to capture a Big Ten regular-season title.
After finishing the regular season on a sour note, the Hawkeyes received a three-seed for the Big Ten Tournament. Iowa secured its tenth straight Big Ten Tournament appearence and the 18th in school history.
The Hawkeyes were 27-32 in the Big Ten Tournament under Manager Rick Heller heading into their semifinal matchup against UCLA.
This year's Big Ten Tournament incorporated pool play for the first time, and the Hawkeyes were matched up against Rutgers and Indiana. They narrowly escaped Rutgers 4-3 and advanced to the semifinals.
Even with a loss to Indiana, the Hawkeyes were the higher-seeded team, automatically qualifying for the next round.
On Saturday, the Oregon versus Nebraska pool play game was moved to the morning, so the Iowa versus UCLA game was moved to 1:00 p.m. Central Time.
Three-seeded Iowa faced a tough task against two-seeded No. 13 UCLA, and they could not overcome the Bruins' huge fifth inning.
After escaping pool play, the Hawkeyes faced a tough UCLA Bruins squad in the semifinals. Iowa sent Aaron Savary to the mound to secure a must-win game against the Bruins. The Bruins roughed up Savary in this matchup.
Savary cruised through the first two innings, but ran into trouble in the third. In the bottom of the third inning, the Bruins plated two runs, and the Hawkeyes could not respond in the top of the next inning. In the bottom of the fourth inning, it all fell apart.
The Bruins added five runs, three of them coming on a Roch Cholowsky three-run blast. Iowa was finally able to put two runs on the board in the top of the fifth inning to cut the deficit to 7-2, but that is as close as they would get.
The Bruins added a run in the sixth and eight innings and downed the Hawkeyes 9-3.
Savary had a brutal outing and the Iowa batters hit .154 as a team, accumulating only five hits and leaving five runners on base.
The Hawkeyes ended their season with a 33-22-1 record and finished third in the Big Ten standings at the end of the regular season.