James Allan from HawkeyeSports.com contributed to this report

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – After defeating Penn State on Thursday, the Iowa baseball team only needed a split against the Nittany Lions on Friday to make the Big Ten Tournament for the third consecutive season.

It was mission accomplished, thanks largely to the pitching of senior Tyler Peyton.

The Grimes native tossed a three-hit complete game shutout to lead Iowa to an 8-0 victory over Penn State to clinch a series victory and a berth in next week’s 2016 Big Ten Tournament.

Penn State rallied from a 4-0 deficit to claim the night cap of a Friday doubleheader and take the series finale, 5-4, in 12 innings at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park.

The loss snapped Iowa’s five-game winning streak, but had no impact on postseason. Iowa finished the regular season with records of 27-25 overall and 12-12 in the Big Ten.

Rick Heller now has led Iowa to the Big Ten Tournament in each of his three seasons as head coach. The top eight teams in the conference standings make the Big Ten Tournament.

Peyton (4-5) allowed a second inning single before retiring the next 15 Nittany Lion batters. All Penn State would muster was a seventh-inning single, it had a runner reach on an error in the eighth, and had a one-out single in the ninth.

Peyton finished with four strikeouts and needed just 98 pitches to record his fourth win. It was Peyton’s third straight victory, as he ran his scoreless innings streak to 23.

Offensively, the Hawkeyes finished with 15 hits with six different players posting multi-hit games and nine tallying at least one hit. Senior Daniel Aaron Moriel was 2-for-4 with a double and three RBIs to lead the team.

Iowa broke a scoreless game in the fourth, using back-to-back singles from Nick Roscetti and Joel Booker before junior Mason McCoy reached on a Penn State fielding error to load the bases. With one out, Moriel lifted a sacrifice fly to right field, giving the Hawkeyes a 1-0 lead.

Iowa extended its lead in the sixth with a three-hit inning and it took advantage of a second Nittany Lion miscue. McCoy and freshman Robert Neustrom started the frame with consecutive singles before Moriel’s RBI groundout made the score 2-0. Iowa’s third run crossed on a Penn State error on a ground ball off the bat of Eric Schenck-Joblinske.

After pushing its lead to 4-0 in the seventh on a Roscetti RBI single, the Hawkeyes put the game away in their final at-bat. Iowa scored four runs on four hits and one Penn State error with McCoy, Neustrom, Moriel, and freshmanZach Daniels tallying RBIs in the inning.