The UW-Whitewater baseball team, ranked third in the country, ran their winning streak to eleven games with a doubleheader sweep of UW-Platteville, 8-5 and 4-2, Wednesday at Prucha Field at Miller Stadium in Whitewater. The Warhawks wrap up regular season play with a 33-5 overall record and 21-2 record in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Platteville ends their season with a record of 10-30 overall and 5-19 in the WIAC.
In game one Jared Fon (Germantown/Germantown) drew first blood, striking a homer to right field to give the Warhawks a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Two batters later Marty Herum (River Falls/River Falls) hit his team leading twentieth double of the season, and two batters after that Steve Bartlein (South Milwaukee/South Milwaukee) doubled to left to plate Herum and give UW-W a 2-0 advantage.
The Pioneers capitalized with two outs and the bases loaded in the top of the second when shortstop Tyler Jacobson singled up the middle to score two and tie the game. Ryan Duva followed with a single to right center to score one more and give Platteville a 3-2 lead. UW-P made it 4-2 in the third with back-to-back-to-back singles.
UW-W pulled within one in the bottom of the third when Herum launched his seventh homerun of the season to right field. The Warhawks then tied things up at four in the fourth scoring on a groundout with runners on the corners.
Another run in the fifth gave UW-Whitewater a lead they never gave up. Trey Cannon (Palatine, IL/Palatine) started the inning off with a walk and then stole second. Cannon advanced to third when Herum singled to left in the next at bat, and then scored when Mikole Pierce (DePere/DePere) hit into a 6-4-3 double play.
Mike Mierow (Brookfield/Central) sacrificed in an insurance run in the sixth to make it 6-4 and UW-W plated two more in the eighth to take a four run lead, 8-4.
The Pioneers managed to score one more in the ninth on a wild pitch, but Cody Steed (Janesville/Craig) struck out the next batter to end the game.
Matt Roberts (Manitowoc/Roncalli) earned the win for the Warhawks to improve to 6-0 this season. Roberts struck out seven in the game and now leads the team with 70 strikeouts.
A bases loaded walk in the second inning plated the first run of game two and gave the Pioneers a 1-0 lead. Two and half innings later the Warhawks tied the game when Steve Bartlein (South Milwaukee/South Milwaukee) singled in Mikole Pierce (DePere/DePere), who reached earlier in the inning on a ground rule double to left field.
Platteville plated another in the sixth to regain the lead 2-1, but their lead was short lived. In the bottom of the inning Casey Power (Ontario, Canada/Belle River) hit an infield single with runners on second and third to score one and tie the game. The Warhawks then took the lead on the next at bat when JT Schneider (Oak Creek/Oak Creek) singled to center to score one more and make it 3-2.
With one out in the seventh, Fon reached on a single to right, and Herum followed with a triple to complete the cycle for the day (he singled, doubled and homered in game one) and push Fon across home plate to give the Warhawks a 4-2 edge.
Tom Kerndt (Lansing, IA/Lansing), Quintin Zander (Black Earth/Wisconsin Heights), and Scott Plaza (Arlington Heights, IL/Prospect) combined to hold the Pioneers to two runs on four hits while striking out eight. Kerndt threw the first six innings and earned the win to improve to 7-1 this season, Zander pitched a hitless seventh and eighth, and Plaza pitched the ninth to earn his first save of the season.
UW-W was error free in the doubleheader.
The Warhawks are off until Saturday when they host the two-day, double-elimination WIAC Tournament. UW-W, the WIAC regular season champion, earned the number one seed and will face off against the fourth seeded Eagles of UW-La Crosse at 10 am. UW-Stevens Point and UW-Oshkosh are the two other teams in the tournament. The tournament champion receives the WIAC's automatic berth in the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III championship.