The Iowa State University baseball team suffered a heart-breaking loss to intrastate rival Northern Iowa Tuesday afternoon by the score of 7-4 at Cap Timm Field.

The game, which was the first of 10 at home, saw three Cyclone hitters get beaned by pitches as the Cyclones fell to 6-16 on the season.

The Cyclones were lead at the plate by seniors Darrin DeReu and Ryan Harmon along with junior infielder Chriss Grubb.

Each player had two hits in the afternoon.

DeReu powered the Cyclones with a pair of doubles on the afternoon, while driving in two of the Cyclones’ four runs, while Harmon and Grubb each had a pair of singles.

Cyclone right-hander Scott Grawe took the loss, despite a mixed performance and little team support on the defensive end.

The Cyclones managed to commit three errors in the game, of which included a botched double play ball, Grawe’s inability to grab a slow dribbler back to him and senior Troy Logan’s throw wide to Sammy Cox on a steal.

Grawe, now 1-3 on the season, said he didn’t have good control of his pitches today.

“I was leaving the ball up the entire game,” Grawe said.

“My slider wasn’t biting like usual and my fastball wasn’t as hard as usual.”

The Cyclones managed to rattle Panther starting pitcher Matt Schmaltz in the first two innings of the game. The Cyclones manufactured a couple of runs in the first inning.

Cyclone Head Coach Lyle Smith was disappointed with the team’s performance.

“Our defensive effort is frustrating,” Smith said. “We looked like we were out here to soak up the sun instead of concentrating.”

“Our offense was terrible,” Smith said. “Sometimes when the bases are loaded you kind of hope that they will throw the ball away so you can score some runs, but that didn’t happen.”

Junior Mike Bahun lead off the Cyclone half of the first with a double that straddled the third baseline. DeReu brought Bahun in when he followed with a double of his own. Logan was then hit by a pitch, the first by Schmaltz in the game.

Grubb followed with his first single of the contest while driving in DeReu to complete the scoring for the Cyclones in the bottom of the first inning.

The Cyclones struck again in the bottom of the second when Harmon reached base on a single, stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error by Panther catcher Josh Ellwanger.

Harmon then scored on a wild pitch by Schmaltz.

But the Cyclones had the chance to break the game open in the third inning of the game.

Logan singled with one out, Grubb followed with his second hit of the game, and then Cox managed to single, but saw Logan standing on third.

That left the Cyclones with a bases-loaded situation with one away, but Cyclone hitter Rob Ipsen struck out looking and Harmon was called out on appeal to the first base umpire about a check swing.

“They [UNI] managed to get fired up after that because they managed to stop us from scoring when the bases were loaded,” Smith said.

“We just can’t seem to find the right combination of players,” Smith said.

“We have been back to drawing board so many times it is becoming frustrating.”

The Panthers, after only having nine batters hit in the first three innings, began to mount their attack. UNI saw their sophomore secondbaseman double with one away, designated hitter Tom Hunter followed with a two out double. Panther infielder Rob McCormick followed with a single to put runners on first and third with two away. Then junior outfielder Chad Barnes singled in the second run of the inning to close the margin to 3-2 in favor of the Cyclones.

The Cyclones scored their final run of the game in the bottom of the fourth inning when Harmon lead off the inning with a single.

Bahun sacrificed Harmon to second, then DeReu doubled for the second time in the game while driving in Harmon to up the Cyclone margin to 4-2.

But Schmaltz and the Panthers managed to shut down the Cyclones the rest of the way.

In addition to Logan, Cox and Bahun were each struck out by pitches from Schmaltz, while Cyclone reliever Steve Larkin hit McCormick to open the eighth inning.

Smith was also disappointed with the performance of his closer, Larkin.

“You usually do not want to bring in your closer that early in the game, but Scotty [Grawe] was getting tired,” Smith said. ” But that backfired on us.”

Larkin managed to last an inning, face six hitters. Of the six, Larkin managed to hit a batter, walk a pair and saw Harmon boot an easy double play ball, before getting a double play.

Larkin gave up a pair of unearned runs in the contest, which stretched the Panther lead to the final margin of 7-4.

The Cyclones will next be in action this afternoon, beginning at 1:30 p.m. at Cap Timm Field against Winona State University. The Cyclones will also be facing Grand View Thursday at the Cyclone field.