Club Baseball takes two of three against Iowa Hawkeyes

The Club Baseball team played a home series against the Iowa Hawkeyes. Games one and two were on Saturday, Feb. 29. The Gorillas lost the first game (11-4) but came back and won the second game (3-2). They ended the weekend with another win (6-3).  

Club Baseball President and senior in business management Drew Roy was proud of the team for continuing to fight hard, especially in the last game of the weekend.  

“Honestly, it was a fantastic weekend,” Roy said. “Iowa’s a great opponent. The first one…, the wheels fell off a little bit late in the game, but we showed a lot of fight being able to bounce back and take the next two games of the series. Especially in the third game, everybody held it together. We had to go 14 innings and to win it the way we did, with Simon hitting a walk-off home run, was incredible.”  

Roy noticed a few things that the team did well throughout the weekend.  

“Our pitching was good,” Roy said. “They gave us a chance to win, especially in the second and third games… A couple guys were in their first outings but that’s to be expected. Iowa’s a tough opponent. They got a really good offense. Our defense was very good the entire day. I don’t think we made an error the entire weekend.”  

While the team played well, they still need to improve their offense according to Roy.   

“Our offense still isn’t quite where we need it to be,” Roy said. “We’re close… I think we’ll keep better offensively as we see more pitching. But that’s the only thing probably inconsistent right now.”  

A couple of the players stood out to Roy during the series.   

“Dack Sanborn was our player of the week,” Roy said. “He went six for 15 and he had a game tying home run in the bottom of the 13th of game three. Simon Higginbotham who had the walk-off three run home runs in the 14th and then he threw all 14 innings of game three. Then, Jacob Galbraith had a great game in game two. He gave us an opportunity to bounce back from the game one loss.”  

Next up for Club Baseball is a weekend series against the Missouri Tigers in Columbia from Saturday, March 7 to Sunday, March 8. Games one and two are on Saturday, March 7 at 1 p.m. and then 3 p.m. Game three is on Sunday, March 8 at 11 a.m.  

Roy is excited to travel to Mizzou.  

“Next weekend, we make our first road trip of the year,” Roy said. “We are at Mizzou. Mizzou is consistently at the top of our conference. They’re receiving votes for the top 20… So, they’ll be a quality opponent and we just need everybody to be locked in especially with it being the first road trip of the year. That can just be a different environment.”