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Solid Pitching
Leads Pointers to Three Wins
UW-Stevens Point used three dominating pitching
performances to sweep three baseball games from UW-Platteville on Monday in
Platteville.
Four Pointers� pitchers limited the Pioneers to
just three runs and 12 hits for the day. Brandon Hemstead threw a complete
game in a 5-2 opening-game win, Mike Thrun went six innings in a 3-1 win in
the middle game and Garrett Nix twirled a one-hit shutout in a 5-0 victory
in the nightcap. The Pointers are now 9-6 overall, while UW-Platteville is
5-9.
The tripleheader of seven inning games marked the
first conference games for each team and was necessitated when doubleheaders
on Saturday and Sunday were rained out. The fourth game of the series will
not be made up.
It was the fourth time over the past seven years
that UW-Stevens Point has played three games in a single day and the
Pointers have won all three each time. They also accomplished the feat in
the 2001 and 2006 conference tournaments and in 2003 at UW-Stout.
In the opening game, Hemstead struck out seven and
allowed just five hits in the victory. Joel Hojnacki led off the game with a
single and scored on an error and the lead stood until the Pointers added
four more runs in the sixth. Brandon Scheidler and Tim Schlosser each had
run-scoring singles and two runs scored on a two-out throwing error. Ross
Bennett hit a two-run homer for UW-Platteville in the bottom of the sixth
and the Pioneers put two runners on base in the bottom of the seventh, but
Hemstead worked out of the jam.
Thrun had seven strikeouts and gave up six hits in
the second game before Jordan Zimmermann pitched the seventh inning for his
first career save. Brad Archambeau and Scheidler each had run-scoring
singles in a two-run third inning.
Nix had his first complete game in six career
starts and finished with nine strikeouts, including five in the last three
innings. He allowed only a leadoff single to Nick Aplin in the second
inning. Garret Bloom had a run-scoring single in the second inning and
Scheidler drove in a run on a fifth inning single. Ryan Byrnes added a
two-run double in the sixth and Zimmermann slugged a solo homer in the
seventh.
The Pointers host UW-Whitewater in a four-game
series on Thursday and Friday with doubleheaders at 1 p.m. each day.
Zimmermann is the scheduled starter for Thursday�s opening game. |
