College baseball notebook: Surprising Hawkeyes ride strong hitting and pitching to top of Big Ten

By Canadian Press on April 21, 2025.

No one is surprised that West Coast additions UCLA, Oregon, Southern California and Washington are lined up in a row in the Big Ten Conference standings.

What’s surprising is that Iowa is the one team in front of them.

The Hawkeyes (27-11, 17-4), picked ninth in the conference by D1Baseball.com, are coming off a three-game sweep at Michigan and start the week 2 1/2 games ahead of second-place UCLA.

Iowa now starts one of the toughest finishing Big Ten stretches. It hosts Indiana this week, visits Washington on May 2-4 and closes at home against Oregon on May 15-17. All three opponents are in the top six in the standings. The Hawkeyes also play Oregon State in a nonconference series on May 9-11 in Des Moines, Iowa.

The Hawkeyes lead the conference in batting (.310), with Gable Mitchell, Reese Moore, Miles Risley and Ben Wilmes each hitting .320 or higher. They are averaging better than 9 runs per game in conference play.

Their weekend rotation is led by left-hander Cade Obermueller, whose decision to return to school after being selected in the 19th round in the 2024 Major League Baseball amateur draft is paying off. His fastball is up a couple of ticks into the low 90s, and he’s added polish to his slider and changeup. He leads the Big Ten in strikeouts and has cut his walk rate in half.

Obermueller (4-2), Aaron Savary (6-0) and Reece Beuter (4-0) have combined to go 14-2 with a 3.34 ERA and 10.6 strikeouts and 3.5 walks per nine innings.

In the polls

Texas (33-5) remains the consensus No. 1 team in the polls after a three-game sweep of Auburn.

Clemson (35-7) is No. 2 and North Carolina (31-9) is No. 3 by Baseball America, which dropped Tennessee and Georgia out of the top three after they both lost series. Clemson won two of three against Louisville and the Tar Heels won two of three at Virginia Tech.

D1Baseball also has Clemson at No. 2, followed by Oregon State (30-7).

Longhorns widen lead

Texas, at 16-2 in Southeastern Conference play, has opened a three-game lead and won 10 of its last 11 league games. Kimble Schuessler hit a pair of three-run homers to go with a two-run double for an eight-RBI day in Saturday’s 14-2 win over Auburn.

Second-place Arkansas lost two of three at home to resurgent Texas A&M, which has won nine of its last 10 games and three straight SEC series.

Mother-son mom

ent

One of the heartwarming moments of the weekend came in the first inning of Mississippi’s 12-2 win at South Carolina when Austin Fawley hit a first-inning grand slam and his mom, Jennifer Fawley, caught the ball off one bounce on the left-field concourse.

Jennifer, wearing a red “Rebels Mama” T-shirt, made the grab with her right hand while holding her phone with her left. She beamed as he held up both arms in celebration.

Sunflower sweep

Kansas’ season keeps getting better. The Jayhawks (31-10, 12-6 Big 12) swept Kansas State at home to match their 2024 win total with 15 regular-season games left. They have their best record through 41 games since the 1993 team opened 32-9 on its way to the College World Series.

Cleanup spot

Yale freshman Jack Ohman, who gave up just one earned run in his first 47 1/3 innings, was tagged for three in 6 2/3 innings of a 7-4 win over Penn on Saturday. That bumped his nation-leading ERA from 0.19 to 0.67. … Mason Neville homered in back-to-back games of Oregon’s series win over UCLA to take over the national lead with 19. … Miami took three games from Georgia Tech at home for its first sweep of a top-15 opponent since 2022. The Hurricanes (24-17, 9-9 ACC) have won seven of their last eight. … Clemson sophomore Drew Titsworth pitched six scoreless innings Saturday in his first career start, a 2-1 win over Louisville. … West Virginia (34-4) extended its nation-leading win streak to 14 games with a sweep of Cincinnati at home.

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

Eric Olson, The Associated Press