A season that started with the Iowa baseball team as the only nationally ranked Big Ten team has so far failed to live up to the hype.

Iowa fell to Ohio State 11-1 in Sunday’s rubber match in Columbus, Ohio.

Iowa after winning its first two Big Ten series, Iowa has now lost two straight Big Ten series and is 6-6 midway through conference play.

Junior flame thrower Brody Brecht started Sunday’s game, but he only lasted 3 1/3 innings, allowing three runs on three hits. The Ankeny native had three strikeouts and walked four.

Ohio State broke the game open by scoring five runs in the fifth to take an 8-1 lead.

Iowa never threatened again.

The Hawkeyes used five different pitchers out of the bullpen following Brecht’s departure, but the Buckeyes feasted on all of them, hitting four home runs in the run-rule victory.

“We came out and scored a run in the first inning and had some good at bats,” said Iowa head coach Rick Heller. “Then we had some opportunities in the second and thought we might break it open. Then we had a couple bad at bats and ended up not scoring which was big in this game.

“We had another chance in the fifth offensively, a chance to maybe break the game open, and again we followed it up again with two bad at bats. Went to the bullpen in the fifth and it didn’t go well, they jumped on us for five and four with two outs and we didn’t pitch well after that.”

Iowa was limited to just five hits in 28 plate appearances, while Ohio State had seven two-out RBIs.

“It was just a disappointing day for us,” said Heller. “We hit almost 20 groundballs on a day when the wind was blowing out 25 miles per hour. Pitch selection and poor execution when we had opportunities early to jump on them. Kind of the story, we didn’t play well. We didn’t hit well, and we didn’t pitch well, and that is what happens when you do those two things together. Ohio State made us pay.”

Iowa was ranked No. 20 in the preseason D1 Baseball preseason Top 25 poll, but has struggled to gain any traction for multiple reasons, including allowing too many free bases.

Iowa had evened the series against Ohio State on Saturday behind the pitching of junior Marcus Morgan, who had been struggling with his control. Morgan only allowed one run and three hits over six innings as Iowa prevailed, 3-2.

So, with Brecht on the mound Sunday, there was reason for optimism since he at times has been almost unhittable.

But that wasn’t the case in this game as he failed to get out of the fourth inning.

Iowa faces Bradley on Wednesday at 6:05 p.m. at Duane Banks Field before hosting Rutgers in a three-game series beginning on Friday.

Hawkeyesports.com contributed to this report