Olympic sports wrap up— baseball hosts Blue Jays, golf takes second, volleyball is 11-2

It was a busy week in the Iowa Olympic sports world this week, so let’s get you caught up with everything else that’s going on at Iowa.

First, the Iowa baseball team is starting its fall games with a matchup against the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays’ Twitter page calls them “Canada's Top Amateur Baseball Program.” We’ll see what they have against the defending Big Ten champions (I could get used to saying that).

The game is set to start on Saturday at 11 a.m. and will apparently go until 3 p.m. Admission is free.

Oh, and one more note: The 2017 team is getting their Big Ten championship rings. Pretty cool. If you’re in Iowa City, it’d be a perfect place to kill some time before the football team takes on Penn State.

Men’s golf finishes 2nd at Golfweek Challenge, women 12th at Mercedes-Benz

The Iowa men’s golf team finished just four strokes behind North Carolina State at the Golfweek Conference Challenge on Tuesday in Cedar Rapids.

Sophomore Alex Schaake finished second overall, carding a 54-hole score of 208 (-8; 70, 70, 68) in both his lowest score and the highest finish of his career. Alex is the brother of former standout Iowa golfer Carson Schaake, so it seems the bloodline runs strong in the family.

Ryoto Furuya was the second highest-scoring Hawkeye, notching an -2 and finishing 12th. Iowa’s finishes:

The men head to Dallas on Sunday to take part in the SMU Intercollegiate, which runs through Tuesday. Must be nice to miss all that class.

The Iowa women’s golf team finished 12th at the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship on Tuesday, led by Kristin Glesne’s +5, which put her at a tie for 29th-overall. Jessica Ip finished 34th with a +7.

Scorecard:

The Hawkeye women’s team has a couple-week layoff and won’t compete again until Oct. 13, when they head to North Carolina.

Volleyball wins fourth straight, is perfect at American Volleyball Classic

Iowa has started this season 11-2, which is the best start to a year since 2006 in part to a three-game sweep at the American Volleyball Classic in Washington D.C.

First they downed Howard 3-1, then American 3-0, and finished with another 3-0 victory, this time over Princeton. Wow. Granted those aren’t the premier volleyball schools in the nation, but no matter how you put it only giving up one set for an entire tournament is impressive.

I like what we have going right now with our middles and that slide tempo,” head coach Bond Shymansky said to HawkeyeSports. “It was a great weekend for us to come out 3-0, and now we jump on a plane and get back to Iowa City and really get ready for the daunting Big Ten slate that's coming towards us."

Brie Orr was named co-freshman of the week for her efforts. It’s the first time this year a Hawkeye has gotten a weekly spotlight award and the third time it’s happened under Shymansky.

Iowa has a big time weekend ahead of it, facing Rutgers in Piscataway on Friday and then a huge test against No. 2 Penn State on Saturday in State College.

Field hockey falls to Penn State, tops Penn

It wasn’t the best of weeks for the Hawkeyes, as the field hockey team went 1-1 on the weekend.

Friday’s game ended up with the Nittany Lions shutting out Iowa 3-0. Penn State — who is 7-0 on the year and ranked third in the nation — scored in the 32nd, 37th, and 58th minutes to wrap up the win over Iowa.

No. 19 Iowa got into the weekend win column with a 3-2 win over Penn. Senior Mallory Lefkowitz scored in the 57th minute to break the tie and move the Hawkeyes to 4-5 on the year.

Iowa takes another road trip this weekend and will face Maryland on Friday followed by Rutgers on Sunday.

Iowa men’s cross finishes first, women third at Woody Greeno

The Iowa men’s cross country team went 1-2 in the individual race as sophomore Nathan Mylenek and junior Ian Eklin finished well at the Woody Greeno Invitational.

Andrea Shine won the race on the women’s side of things while Madison Waymire finished sixth in a great weekend for the Hawkeyes. The Iowa men won the invitational while the women came in third as a team, behind South Dakota and Nebraska.

"I was pleased with how the men operated today. Our primary goal was to move as a team. We had our team in 30th at 1k and patiently moved up from there. Nathan Mylenek, Daniel Soto, and Ian Eklin all had a lot left and pushed hard the last 1k to secure the team win. We had much better team tactics today compared to the season opener." Iowa head coach Randy Hasenbank said to HawkeyeSports. "Andrea Shine won the University division. She was beat by one professional athlete and that's exciting. Andie and Madison both moved to the front of the pack and stayed up front most of the way."