The UW-Whitewater baseball team totaled 37 hits in a doubleheader sweep of Ripon College Saturday at Prucha Field in James B. Miller Stadium in Whitewater.  The Warhawks tallied 22 hits in a 15-3 victory in game one and 15 hits in a 10-2 win in game two.  The Warhawks improve to 9-3 overall and Ripon falls to 4-8.

With the first game tied at one in the bottom of the fourth, the Warhawks batted around and scored eight to take a 9-1 lead.  Marty Herum (River Falls/River Falls) ledoff the inning with a double to left center, Sam Keller Jr. (Milwaukee/Riverside) reached on an error and Mikole Pierce (DePere/DePere) walked.  The Warhawks then strung together four consecutive base hits to score four runs.  After a fielder's choice and a sacrifice fly, UW-W hit three consecutive singles, each scoring a run.  The Red Hawks finally got out of the inning when Keller was thrown out trying to advance to third on a hit.

UW-W stretched their lead to 11-1 after two more runs in the fifth.  Ripon notched a run in the top of the sixth but back-to-back doubles by Herum and Keller in the Warhawk half of the sixth made it 12-2.

Jared Fon (Germantown/Germantown) belted a double to left field in the seventh that plated Dylan Friend (Burlington/Burlington) and Michael Gonzalez (Delavan/Delavan-Darien) and the Warhawk lead grew to 14-2.  Herum followed with a single to left, his fourth hit of the game, and Fon scored to make it 15-2.

The Red Hawks manufactured a run in the top of the eighth to make it 15-3, but that was all they got.

Matt Roberts (Manitowoc/Roncalli) pitched six innings to earn the victory for UW-W.  Roberts struck out nine, walked two, and gave up seven hits and two runs.  Justin Mortensen (Hartland/Arrowhead) pitched the seventh and eighth and Brock Liston (Darien, IL/Joliet Catholic) pitched the ninth.

Game two was another lopsided victory for UW-W with another solid pitching effort, this time by Scott Plaza (Arlington Heights, IL/Prospect).  Plaza held the Red Hawks scoreless until the sixth inning and by then he already had four runs of support.

The Warhawks jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second and added two more in the bottom of the fourth.  A four-run sixth made it 8-1.  Three of the runs came off of the bat of Mikole Pierce (DePere/DePere) who smacked a homer over the left field wall that plated Mike Mierow (Brookfield/Central) and Keller.

Ripon scored again in the seventh but UW-W kept the runs coming with two more in their half of the frame.  Herum and Pierce both hit RBI singles to right in the inning.

Plaza gave up six hits and one run in the game while striking out one and walking two.  Curtis Morgan (Green Lake/Green Lake), Quintin Zander (Black Earth/Wisconsin Heights) and Justin Lambert (Mt. Horeb/Mt. Horeb) each came in to pitch an inning to finish the game.

Fon and Pierce collected six hits apiece in the doubleheader while Herum had five.  Pierce also drove in five runs and scored four.

The Warhawks will play again when they open up Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference action with a doubleheader on Wednesday, April 3 against UW-Platteville in Whitewater beginning at 1pm.