The UW-Whitewater baseball team has withstood an elimination game and sends the WIAC champions to another matchup vs. archrival UW-Stevens Point. The Warhawks jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in Saturday morning's contest involving the two remaining ubbeaten teams in Midwest Regional Baseball action on Prucha Field at James. B. Miller Stadium.
The Pointers didn't take long to rally roughing UWW starting pitcher Jeff Donovan for six runs in the third inning on the way to a 12-4 victory sending the Pointers to Saturday's championship game. The Hawks used two of its regular starting pitchers in the loss. Donovan went the first three innings with Aaron Leitner pitching the final six innings of the game.
The Hawks then faced St. Thomas (Minn), the defending NCAA Division III National Champions in s lste afternoon "elimination" game. The Tommies advanced by defeating Carthage Collge (Wisc) 6-5 in Saturday's second ballgame.
Middle relief specialist, Kyle Lee got the starting assignment and rose to the occasion going 3.1 innings giving up two runs on four hits.
In the "battle to stay alive" game head coach John Vodenlich called for Ben Versnik, who set a school record with seven saves so far this season. Versnik was extended to his longest outing of the season by going three innings, giving up two runs on four hits.
In the must-win situation, the Hawks went to Riley Tincher who was the winning pitcher in the Hawks first reginal game vs. Aurora Univesity (Ill). The big lefthander shut the door on the Tommies bid for back-to-back national championships by striking out three of the 10 batters he faced to pick up a save.
The Warhawks and Pointers now meet for the Regional championship and berth in next week's NCAA Division III National Championship at Fox Cities in Grand Chute. The 12-Noon game will mark the ninth time the WIAC archrivals will have met this season. That will tie the UW-Whitewater record for most games against one team in a season, which also occurred in 2005.
If Whitewater wins the first game the final game of the regional, and tenth in the UW-W versus UW-SP series, will be played at 3:00.
Much more on today's action and a look to Saturday will be coming up later tonight here on Voice's Eye on Baseball Blog.
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