CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa—The No. 21 Wartburg baseball team (34-9 overall) defeated Coe (28-14) as it came from behind to win 7-6 to clinch the Iowa Conference Tournament Championship and earn the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. This was the third comeback victory in as many days for the Orange and Black.

"We've had a tough seven days with injuries and sleeping at the stadium Thursday night," said head coach Joel Holst. "Injuries to our starters are tough for teams to get through but it made it even sweeter to have two come back wins over Coe to win the title."

The Knights swept the conference crowns as they also won the regular-season title for the first time since 2008.

This marked the ninth conference tournament championship since the event's inception in 1994.

The current seniors were the first class that had not won a conference title coming into this year.

"It means everything to us seniors an the team," said senior shortstop Levi Montague (Norway). "When we found out we had won the regular season title at Luther, all of the underclassmen came up to us, gave us a hug and said the win was for us seniors.

"This season has been a huge team effort and glad everyone has been a part of it."

The Kohawks took the early 6-0 lead in the second as they plated six runs by capitalizing on two Knights’ defensive errors.

This remained the score until the sixth inning when junior Joe Grote (Kenyon, Minn.) broke up the no-hitter with his double to deep right centerfield.

Classmate Craig Kerper (Dyersville) drew a walk and senior Andrew Krehbiel (Donnellson) drove in Grote on his double to right field. Kerper later scored on senior Ryan Doty’s (Dubuque) ground out.

Senior Drew Yoder (Wellman) hits a sac fly to right to score Krehbiel to slice lead in half at 6-3.

Montague hit a triple to deep right centerfield in the seventh to drive on senior Tony Stenberg (Atkins). Junior Jake Raecker (Waterloo) hit a single to shallow centerfield that drops between three fielders for a double and moves to third on an error as no one was fielding second base. Montague scored on the play to make it 6-5.

Grote hit a single to the gap to score Raecker and knot the game at six in the seventh.

Yoder hit a leadoff single in the eighth and moved to second on a wild pitch. Sophomore Chaz Boots (Cedar Rapids) replaced him as a pinch runner and moved to third on a wild pitch.

Montague drove in Bootz for what proved to be the game-winning run on his single past the third baseman.

Coe had one more trip to the plate to attempt a rally. Redmond was retired on a groundout to second base. Larison grounded out to first and Konrardy flew out to third base in foul territory to seal the title sweeps for Wartburg.

Junior Joe Moen (Rochester, Minn.) came in the third inning and pitched seven complete innings of work to earn the win.

"Joe did a tremendous job for us today," said Holst. "We knew he could stop Coe and put them in a funk offensively as he's mainly been a get out of an inning guy for us. We started scoring runs behind him and he is the only undefeated pitcher in our program's history."

"IIAC Conference Tournament Champs! Another crazy comeback! I absolutely love this team! Im glad our seniors get to keep playing!" junior Ryan Powers (Wheatland) tweeted after the game.

"Greatest baseball game, season, and team I've ever been a part of," tweeted Raecker.

The Knights will find out on Monday who their opponent is and where they are playing.