The Terre Haute Regional gets underway on Friday as Indiana State and Wright State open up play in the afternoon followed by North Carolina taking on Iowa in the nightcap.
For the Tar Heels, they are facing an Iowa team that finished runner-up in the Big Ten Tournament. The Hawkeyes are a good squad that is led by their pitching and UNC will see that early on with ace Marcus Morgan.
To get ready for the game, we talked to Josh Helmer of Hawkeyes Wire to get the breakdown on Iowa. Helmer dished on Iowa’s pitching and what to watch for in that area of the game:
There’s three key names to know: Marcus Morgan, Brody Brecht and Ty Langenberg. With those three, Iowa has a trio of starters it feels it can go win two out of three games with against anybody.
Ty Langenberg was the preseason Big Ten Pitcher of the Year, but it’s been Marcus Morgan’s growth from last season to this that’s really been the difference with this group. In 10 appearances and three starts last season, Morgan had an ERA of 7.63. He’s sliced his ERA down to 3.88 and has a 4-2 record across his 14 starts.
Then, there’s Brody Brecht. He’s got the best stuff of anybody on this staff. He’ll routinely top triple-digits, he has 101 strikeouts on the season and his batting average against is just .148. If he can cut out the free passes, Brecht might just be the best pitcher in this Regional.
The Tar Heels will see Morgan first, but the two teams could matchup later on and it will likey be a different matchup.
But first things first, the Tar Heels have to take care of business on Friday and avoid the loser’s bracket.
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