Issue link: https://catalog.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1129783
21 T here were 31 victories, a sixth straight Big Ten Tournament appearance and a University of Iowa baseball team that was in the late-season NCAA Regional conversation. Iowa head coach Rick Heller will most remember the 2019 Hawkeyes as a team that battled adversity to post its sixth straight 30-win season. "I am happy with how the guys competed all year," said Heller. "ey will go down in my memory as a team that overcame as much as any I have coached through coaching changes, injuries, (losing) a ton of guys in the dra last year, and aside from a couple of weeks, we had all our goals right in our hand." Aer losing pitching coach Desi Druschel and hitting coach Joe Migliccio to the New York Yankees in January, the Hawkeyes were up and down to start the season. ere was a big early- season road series where Iowa took two of three games at No. 19 Oklahoma State, but the team sat at 11-10 aer being swept at Indiana in its first Big Ten series. e Hawkeyes rebounded to sweep No. 23 Illinois the following weekend to open a stretch of six straight series victories, three of which came over ranked opponents. "is season proved we can play with anyone, we beat a lot of great teams and had a lot of great series'," said junior Ben Norman. "We had some lapses when we didn't play great and lost to some teams we shouldn't have. "We set ourselves up to achieve all our goals, but toward the end, we fell off a bit." Injuries to the pitching staff caught up to the Hawkeyes late as Michigan State won two of three games at Duane Banks Field on the final home weekend of the season to squash the team's NCAA at-large hopes. Aer being swept at Maryland to close the regular season, the Hawkeyes rebounded to win a game in the Big Ten Tournament as the No. 8 seed, taking out top-seeded Indiana before losing back-to- back games to Nebraska and Minnesota to end the season. "is group fought every day," said Heller. "What a great group to coach. I am proud to be their coach, they were great people on and off the field. It was a good year for us, advancing to our sixth straight Big Ten Tournament. When you look back at our resume, there are a lot of good wins." Heller credited the senior class with moving the needle forward. "ose guys were outstanding and they were driven to not let us take a step back even though all of us know some of the situations we were faced with were tough," said Heller. "ey kept getting better and working every day. "e fact is, we found ways to win, found ways to come back and never quit, and we kept fighting to get better every day. We believed at the end that we were going to get to where we wanted to. "We didn't play our best baseball at the end, but we'll remember this group fondly for a long time."