La Crosse, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse baseball team earned a 5-2 victory over UW-Whitewater Saturday afternoon in game four of the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Championship (presented by Culver's) at Copeland Park.  The Eagles, ranked fourth on this week's D3baseball.com Top-25 Poll, improve to 33-8 overall while the 15th-ranked Warhawks drop to 28-13. UWL will play for the WIAC Championship Sunday, May 15 at noon against UW-Whitewater or UW-Stevens Point, who will play in an elimination game Saturday night. 

UWL earned the championship's top-seed after winning its 14th regular-season title in school history.  The winner of the championship receives the WIAC's automatic bid to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III Championship. UWL will aim for its third (2000, 2012) tournament championship.

The Eagles improved to 4-1 on the season versus UW-Whitewater after going 3-1 in the team's four-game regular-season series April 30-May 1 at Copeland Park.
 
UWL opened the scoring in the second inning Saturday.  Alex Brown doubled to right with one out, and advanced to third on a Ben Morgan groundout.  Travis Buxton-Verstegen singled to right to drive in Brown to give the Eagles a 1-0 lead.

In the bottom of the third, UWL added a pair of runs to take a 3-0 lead. Taylor Kohlwey singled to lead off the inning, extending his hitting streak to 44 games, the third-longest in NCAA Division III history.  Justin Anderson followed with a single and Carter Hoffman's sacrifice bunt moved the runners to second and third. Kohlwey scored on a wild pitch to make it 2-0, with Anderson moving to third.  Brown singled to right center knocking in Anderson to make it 3-0. 
 
Anderson singled with one out with the fifth and advanced to third on Hoffman's double. Brown's sacrifice fly to right scored Anderson for a 4-0 lead. Hoffmann, who had advanced to third on the out, later scored on a passed ball as Morgan walked to make it 5-0.

UW-Whitewater got on the board in the ninth. Dane Burman singled to the start the inning and replaced by pinch-runner Dylan Bersch, who advanced to second on a wild pitch. Matt Wary's single scored Bersch to cut the Eagles' lead to 5-1 and knock UWL starter Troy Kenkel out of the game with Logan Mallek coming in to pitch. Daytona Bryden's single cut the lead to 5-2. Mallek retired Cal Aldridge on a flyout and Trent Diekvoss a strikeout for the first two outs of the inning. Jordan Kuczynski walked to put runners on first and third, but Mallek struck out ??? Fleischman to end the game.

Kenkel (7-2) earned the win for UWL, pitching 8.0 innings, allowing four hits, two runs and five walks while striking out five. Mallek went 1.0 inning, allowing one hit and one walk with two strikeouts. The Eagles totaled 11 hits as Anderson, Brown, Buxton-Verstegen and Alex Cordova each had two. Brown had two RBI while ANderson scored twice.

Ankur Shah (5-2) suffered the loss for UW-Whitewater, pitching 3.0 innings, allowing seven hits, three runs and one walk with one strikeout.  The Warhawks finished with five hits.

UWL returns to action Sunday, May 15 in the WIAC Championship game at noon.