By DOUG HENNES
WHITEWATER, Wis. – A series of little mistakes hurt St. Thomas Wednesday in the opening round of the NCAA Division III pbaseball layoffs, and the Tommies fell to UW-Whitewater 3-2 as a result.
The Warhawks managed only four hits off freshman pitchers Zach Franz and Mark Ulrich, but they scored one run on a single, the second on an infield single and the third on a sacrifice fly and made two key defensive plays in the late innings to hold off the Tommies.
St. Thomas (27-17) will play Aurora, which lost 3-2 to UW-Stevens Point, at 10 a.m. Thursday in an elimination game. Whitewater will play the winner of Wednesday's final game between Hamline and St. Scholastica.
A frustrated Chris Olean only could shake his head and lament his team's play in the field.
"The little things make the difference in a playoff game," the St. Thomas coach said. "You have to execute against teams that are this good. If you don't, you lose games. We were right there today but couldn't get it done."
The Tommies struggled on defense in the early going, with two throwing errors on routine ground balls, and the first two Whitewater runs also were the result of sloppy play in the field:
• In the first, Dan Putnam scored but he would have been off the base paths if the Tommies had finished a pickoff play. Franz caught Putnam leaning off first and he took off for second, but Dan Reichert's throw popped out of shortstop Kahle's glove and the runner was safe and later scored.
• In the fourth, with St. Thomas leading 2-1 and Whitewater's Matt Beyer on second with two out, Dylan Friend hit a dribbler between first and second. Franz fielded it but wasn't going to beat Friend to the bag, and nobody was covering first. Beyer, running all the way from second, came around to score the tying run.
Whitewater scored the winning run in the bottom of the sixth off Franz, who went six innings and gave up only four hits. Ulrich pitched a perfect seventh and eighth in relief.
The Tommies put runners on the corners in the seventh with one out, but Kahle grounded into a double play. An inning later, St. Thomas opened with back-to-back singles but Whitewater forced the lead runner at third on a sacrifice bunt attempt and the next two batters flew out.
St. Thomas outhit the Warhawks 8-4, but struck out nine times and left seven runners on base, including four in scoring position.
Center fielder Tayler Rahm blasted a second-inning double and fourth-inning home run to break out of a 1-for-16 slump last weekend in the MIAC playoffs.
"I figure he'd start me out with a fastball, so I took a good hack and was able to drive it," Rahm said of his double to left center. "On the home run, he left a changeup up, I got the barrel of the bat on it and hit it out."