Solid work from the UW-Whitewater pitching staff led to a doubleheader sweep of UW-Platteville Tuesday at Kendall Murray Field in Platteville.  The Warhawks notched nine runs on 12 hits in game one to coast to a 9-3 victory and held UW-P to just four hits in game two to go on to win 7-0.  UW-W, ranked fourth in the country by D3baseball.com, improves to 23-4 overall and 11-2 in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.  The Pioneers fall to 6-22 overall and 3-13 in the league.

UW-W opened up the scoring in game one with four runs in the fourth.  The Warhawks scored the each run in a different way; one on a single, one on an error, one on a sacrifice bunt, and the last run came on a ground out.  Mikole Pierce (DePere/DePere) made it 5-0 in the fifth with a sacrifice fly to center that scored Dylan Friend (Burlington/Burlington).

Lefty Justin Mortensen (Hartland/Arrowhead) cruised through the first four innings before hitting a minor road block in the bottom of the fifth.  The first two Pioneer batters reached base, but after striking out the next batter, Mortensen issued a walk to load the bases.  A sacrifice fly plated one and Mortensen was removed from the game.  Austin Jones (Wauwatosa/Wauwatosa West) came in and loaded the bases with a walk before giving up a single through the right side that scored two to make it 5-3.  That was the only hit Jones would allow in his three innings of work.  The Warhawk bats did the rest.

UW-W added four insurance runs in the top of the eighth and Connor Hurst (Waunakee/Waunakee) came in for Jones to finish things off.  Jones earned the win, his first of the season.

Casey Power (Ontario, Canada/Belle River) recorded a 4-for-5 performance in game one with two runs scored and one RBI.  Friend and Pierce each tallied two hits, a run, and an RBI while Nick Kuhlmann (Minneapolis, MN/Minneapolis Southwest) made his only hit count, driving in two.

After UW-W took a 1-0 lead after the first inning in game two, Curtis Morgan (Green Lake/Green Lake) and Colin Grove (Beloit/Memorial) did the rest.  Morgan gave up just three hits in seven innings, walked none and struckout three to improve to 5-0 this season.  Only two Pioneer batters got past second base the whole game.  Grove pitched one-hit baseball over the course of the final two innings and added two strikeouts.

The Warhawk offense continued to add a run at a time in the third, fourth and fifth innings to make it 4-0 and a bases loaded double by Mike Mierow (Brookfield/Central) in the ninth made it 7-0, the final score.

Mierow was 3-for-5 in game two with one run scored and three RBIs.  He and Pierce were the only two from either team with multiple hits.  Pierce added three runs and an RBI.

UW-W will host UW-Stout for a doubleheader Saturday at noon at Prucha Field at James B. Miller Stadium in Whitewater.  The two teams will go at it again on Sunday at the same time and place.