Pointers Overcome Rain and Wind for Second Straight Tournament Title
The weather certainly wasn�t perfect, but the outcome sure was for the UW-Stevens Point baseball team in Saturday�s Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament championship game.
The Pointers overcame a steady rain and sloppy conditions to prevail past UW-La Crosse 6-1 and earn the league�s automatic berth to the NCAA Division III tournament. UW-Stevens Point, now 34-8 overall, won the tournament for the second straight year in making its sixth straight appearance in the title game. The Pointers will make their fifth NCAA tournament appearance in six years and will learn of their first round matchup late Sunday night.
Sophomore Josh Blaha earned the victory in the championship game for the second straight year, allowing just three hits over seven innings pitched. Junior Jared Szews worked out of bases-loaded jams in both the eighth and ninth innings to earn his school record 14th career save.
The three hour, 11 minute game had 14 walks, four hit batters and four wild pitches in the rainy, windy conditions. Several times the game was halted for brief field maintenance, but the game was never officially delayed.
UW-La Crosse scored the game�s first run on a sacrifice fly by Eric Check in the fourth, picking up its only two hits off Blaha until a leadoff single by Matt Kloss in the eighth.
UW-Stevens Point rallied in the bottom of the fourth when Ryan Jones and Kevin Fry both reached and moved up on wild pitches. Joe Waksmonski then drilled a two-run double � the game�s only extra base hit � for a 2-1 lead. The Pointers entered the game with 66 home runs, the most in Division III, but snapped a streak of 14 straight games with a homer.
UW-Stevens Point added two more runs in both the seventh and eighth innings with just one hit in each frame. Paul Molitor scored on a wild pitch and Fry hit a run-scoring single for a 4-1 lead in the seventh. Molitor hit an RBI groundout and Matt Peetz was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the eighth to put the Pointers up 6-1.
UW-La Crosse had the bases loaded with none out in the top of the eighth and the bases full with two outs in the ninth, but Szews held the Eagles scoreless both times.
The Pointers have now won 14 of their last 15 games in finishing 3-0 in the WIAC tournament.