Voice's blog: Friday afternoon at the DIII World Series

• A steady stream of UW-Whitewater baseball fans have been arriving at Fox Valley Stadium for the past 45 minutes.

• The early arrivers didn’t wait for the official Warhawk World Series tailgate to get underway. The non-official tailgates have been going on since 1:45! (see adjacent photo)

• The UW-Whitewater tailgate tent has been erected on the right field line area of the FVS parking lot. The tailgate, just getting underway, is sponsored by the UW-Whitewater Alumni Association and the athletic department. If you are a Warhawk fan, make sure you stop by the tailgate which runs right up to game-time a 4:30 p.m.

• No. 1 ranked Marietta (OH) and Salisbury (MD) are in an old fashioned pitcher’s duel. Each team with just one hit through 4 innings. The Score: Salisbury 0, Marietta 0. Division III Player of the Year. Brian Gasser is on the mound for Marietta. The big righthander’s statistics are awesome with a 13 & 0 record and 1.09 ERA entering today’s game.

• The UW-Whitewater coaching staff was in the stands for much of this morning’s first game. The team has been spending the last couple of hours at nearby baseball fields for NCAA sponsored batting practice.

• My sources are telling me that Jeff Donovan will get today’s starting pitching assignment. At this point that information is not official. Donovan 10 & 0 in 2011.

• I’ve been blogging a great deal about the seniors on this year’s Warhawk baseball team. Last weekend it was the underclassmen down in the batting order. If Jared Fon, Matt Beyer, Dylan Friend and Travis Wessels can even come close to having a weekend, like last weekend, the Hawks’ offense will be in good shape.

• Jared Fon, just a freshman, became the Warhawks’ everyday 3rd baseman earlier this month. His defensive play has been anything but freshman-like.

• The UWW offense has been “off and on” over the past couple of weeks. A big key this weekend will be the ability of Danny Putnam to get on base in the lead-off position, and Andrew Eichstaedt to get “Putty” into scoring position for the “big bats” in the lineup.

• With the Buena Vista Beavers being in its first NCAA Division III World Series – for UWW to get off to a quick lead would definitely advantageous.

• Despite being in a national championship baseball tournament for the first time since 1968 (NAIA) BV insists there is no pressure on the upstarts from the IIAC -There are a lot of teams there that are predicted to win it. We don't have that on our shoulders. We have nothing to lose so I think that makes us a little bit dangerous. (Buena Vista coach Steve Eddie)

• Hawks and Beavers coming up. You can listen to the game on KOOL 106.5 with Gary Douglas and Dick Haven.

CLICK HERE for audio stream of today’s game

I'll be blogging after today's Warhawk game

Voice -