PISCATAWAY, N.J. (April 22, 2022) – The No. 8 Rutgers baseball team dropped a tight 4-1 contest to Iowa on Friday afternoon at Bainton Field. 

While the RU pitching staff limited the Hawkeyes to 4 runs on five hits, Iowa starter Adam Mazur controlled the game, throwing 8.0 innings of 1-run ball and striking out 1 batters to lead his team to a win. 

For the Scarlet Knights, Jared Kollar battled through 4.1 innings, giving up 2 runs on four hits and three walks, while striking out four. He was relieved by Ben Gorski, who threw 3.0 innings, allowing just one hit and 1 earned run with three strikeouts. It was a 1-run game until the eighth, when an error and home run allowed Iowa to jump out to a 4-1 lead and effectively put the game out of reach. 

"I thought Ben Gorski did a great job of keeping us right there," head coach Steve Owens said. "We just couldn't get anything going against Mazur."

Leading off the scoring was the Hawkeyes, who got on the board when Brendan Shur lifted a solo home run to left field in the top of the second inning.

As they've done all season, the Scarlet Knights had an immediate response, this one from the bottom of the lineup. Mike Nyisztor would double down the third base line before Garrett Callaghan cranked a triple deep into the right field corner to score Nyisztor and tie the game at 1-1. 

Iowa jumped back in the top of the fourth, with an Izaya Fullard leadoff double starting things off. After going to third on a flyout, Fullard would score on a sac fly by Sam Peterson to give the Hawkeyes a 2-1 lead. 

After a throwing error put a leadoff man on first to lead off the eighth, Fullard launched a towering 2-run home run to left field, extending the Iowa lead to 4-1. 

Adam Mazur would shut down the RU batters in the bottom of the eighth before Dylan Nedved tossed a 1-2-3 ninth to lock down the save. 

"Mazur was able to cruise through some really easy innings and go really deep," Owens said. "We didn't make the necessary adjustments to get more balls and play hard like we have all year."
 

Rutgers will host Iowa for game two of the series on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. at Bainton Field.
 
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