Winners of 11 of its last 13, Maryland baseball (15-9) travels northwest to open up its Big Ten season against No. 25 Iowa (19-4).
Following a tough early stretch against ranked opponents such as then-No. 4 Ole Miss and then-No. 7 Vanderbilt, as well as West Virginia in their home opener, the Terps jumped out to an early 4-7 record.
That rough patch has been followed up by a hot streak, albeit much of the success has come against subpar opponents. Wins against UMBC, Delaware and George Washington in midweek games and Maine and Albany in weekend series make up the majority of Maryland’s last 13 contests.
But the competition gets stiffer again as conference play rolls around.
The challenge couldn’t come at a better time in coach Rob Vaughn’s opinion. The coach thought his squad flipped a switch in their most recent series win over UCF last weekend.
“Friday at UCF I saw it,” Vaughn said. “We lost, and I told our players after the game, we play that way we win. Now we had some mistakes, like we ran into an out at third…but I thought Friday was a pretty good step.”
Now the Terps turn their attention to the most important portion of the season, starting with a showdown against a red-hot Iowa squad.
The Hawkeyes currently hold the highest winning percentage (.826) in the conference with a 19-4 record and are a perfect 9-0 at home. Coach Rick Heller’s club already has some impressive wins on its resume such as a 12-4 triumph over then-No. 1 LSU on Feb. 25.
Vaughn praised Heller prior to the series, calling him a top-10 coach in the country who prepares his team well and gets the most out of them.
“They’re gonna be very, very fundamentally sound,” Vaughn said. “They’re gonna play really unselfish baseball. They’re a really collective unit offensively…if you ask me — any team in our league — they might not always be the most talented. They’re — to me — the hardest team to take on in the league just because of the way they play the game.”
The offense is led by redshirt sophomore DH Keaton Anthony, a D1Baseball first team Freshman All-American and the Big Ten Freshman of the Year a season ago. The 6-foot-4 slugger is currently batting .329 with a 1.074 OPS along with five home runs and 17 runs batted in.
Redshirt junior outfielder Kyle Huckstorf ranks second on the Hawkeyes in RBIs with 23, and is hitting a scorching .364 with a 1.093 OPS.
Iowa’s overall offense ranks among the best in the conference in batting average (.305), runs batted in (186), runs scored (202), slugging percentage (.486) and on-base percentage (.423), all placing out as top-five numbers.
Iowa’s pitching staff is led by newly-minted Friday starter, sophomore right-hander Brody Brecht. Brecht currently leads the Hawkeyes in ERA at 2.20 and is a big strikeout threat with 46 through 28.2 innings.
Iowa’s original ace and preseason All-Big Ten selection, Ty Langenberg, has struggled to the tune of a 4.39 ERA. The junior right-hander will presumably take the mound on Saturday.
As a whole, the Hawkeyes’ staff currently leads the Big Ten in ERA (3.93), strikeouts (262), hits allowed (149) and batting average against (.208).
This opening series will be a good barometer for the Terps to see where they place against one of the Big Ten’s best before hosting its first conference opponent in Rutgers next weekend.
The start times from Iowa City are set for 1 p.m. on Friday and Sunday and 3:05 p.m. on Saturday.
