Weekend Wrap-Up

It was a very interesting weekend of baseball for the four Wisconsin teams in action. The teams battled long bus rides, sever weather and some extremely tough competition in what turned out to be a tough weekend.

MSOE
The lone bright spot of the weekend was the MSOE Red Raiders. They opened their 2011 schedule with a 7-3 victory over Franklin College of Indiana in Winter Haven, Fla. No stats are posted for the game but a victory is always a good way to start out the season.

Cardinal Stritch
In other action, Cardinal Stritch picked up the only other win of the weekend but dropped three out of four games to Harris-Stowe State University in St. Louis.

The Wolves pitching (especially starting pitching) struggled all weekend long. For the four game series the staff compiled an earned run average of 12.77 giving up 35 earned runs and 41 total runs. Senior Andy Klein of Cudahy put together Cardinal Stritch's winning performance going six innings, allowing just four hits and one earned run while striking out six.

Offensively the Wolves were in mid-season form, hitting .339 and scoring 30 runs in the weekend. Sterling Smith and Mike Mather led the way with five hits each. Smith, Deano Mlachnik and Paul Blair accounted for the team's three home runs.

The 1-3 start is not ideal but the Wolves discovered that their offense has some big time potential this season.

UWM
The Milwaukee Panthers traveled to Tennessee for the second consecutive weekend in hopes of playing four games. Because of severe weather, the Panthers only played two games against Illinois State and lost both games to Austin Peay.

Like Stritch, the Panthers pitchers had a rough weekend, giving up 13 runs in each game to Illinois State.

In game one, the Panthers were thoroughly outplayed in a game for the first time in the young season as they lost 13-3.Jonathan Capasso led the Panthers in the game with three hits including a solo home run. Doug Dekoning continued his red hot start to the season going 2-3 and DH Phil Striggow also added two hits.

In the second game, Sam Sivilotti led the Panthers going 4-5 with a home run. The offense's efforts looked like they were going to be enough to secure the victory, but with two outs in the ninth the Red Birds scored four runs to tie the game up at eight and send it to extra innings.

In the eleventh inning, the Red Birds put up a five spot and eventually went on to win the game 11-8. Lost in the painful loss were two hit performances by Alex Erdman, Cole Kraft, Ryan Solberg and Striggow. Greg Blohowiak also pitched another perfect inning.

The game went on for over seven and a half hours due to delays caused by rain, lightning and tornado sirens.

UW-Parkside
The Parkside Rangers were swept in a three game series by Winona State in Jacksonville, Ill. Only scores were available at this time.
Game 1: 8-0
Game 2: 13-4
Game 3:  7-5

 STARS OF THE WEEK 

Sam Sivilotti, Sterling Smith and Andy Klein (L to R)

UWM prepares for Austin Peay State University Classic

Milwaukee will look to get their first winning streak of the young season as they travel to Clarksville, Tennessee for the APSU Classic. Weather has already caused a cancellation of one game for the Panthers, who were originally scheduled to play four games.

Instead of two games on Saturday, Milwaukee will ONLY play the Illinois State Redbird (2-2). Sunday is still scheduled for one game each against Illinois St. and Austin Peay (3-0).

In a twist of starting pitchers, the Panthers will look to Chad Pierce, Jordan Guth and Eric Semmelhack for quality performances. Semmelhack replaces Jayme Sukowaty from a week ago in Tennessee There is no current word on if Sukowaty is injured or if it was just a performance based move for the Panthers.

APSU's website will have live statistics available for each game and ISU will have live audio available with John Twork on the call.

Don't think we will be posting much on here or on Twitter for this weekend but as soon as we can we'll write up a story about it.

Congratulations to Doug Dekoning on being named Horizon League Batter of the Week after hitting .500 (6-12) in a three game series against Tennessee. The senior also knocked in four runs in the series.

UW-Parkside 2011 Season Preview

The UW-Parkside Rangers are prepared to open up the 2011 season with a four game series against Winona State University at Lenz Field in Jacksonville, Ill.

This season will mark the second for Parkside head coach Joel Weaver and he hopes to improve on the 13-39 overall record that his team produced a season ago. That record included a 7-25 finish in Great Lakes Valley Conference play to finish last in the East Division.

This spring will be a fresh start for Weaver and the Rangers baseball program. Although the roster only lists two freshmen, Weaver was extremely busy on the recruiting path. The coach has brought in 10 transfers to
totally reshape the roster at Parkside.

Notable Transfers:
Taylor Schwartz, Senior Infielder - After a notable career at Madison College where Schwartz was named First team All-Region, First Team All-Conference, and First Team All-District, he transferred to Division I UNC-Greensboro. There, Schwartz started at third for the beginning of the season but struggled to get going and will try to turn it around at Parkside.

John Brennan, Junior Infielder - Brennan transfers in from the College of Lake County in Illinois where he was an All-Conference performer. A season ago, the infielder hit .421 with 1 HR 26 RBI and 57 runs scored. Brennan got on base more that half of the time he was at the plate, with an on base percentage of .551.

Adam Becht, Junior Pitcher - The 6'8" pitcher compiled a team high five wins at Lincoln College a season ago. In 51.2 innings pitched Becht struck out 41 batters. The junior will have to keep his walk totals down if he hopes to have success at the Division II level.

Josh Geiger, Junior Pitcher - Transferred from Vincennes University where he finished with an 8-3 record and pitched in the Junior College World Series in 2010. In 60 innings pitched, Geiger struck out 42 batters and walked just 28.

Notable Returners
Dave Lojeski, Senior Infielder - Lojeski had a huge first season with the Rangers in 2009. He led the team with a .380 batting average, a .587 slugging percentage and a .472 on base percentage. He was also perfect on the base paths stealing five bags in five opportunities. Prior to coming to Parkside, Lojeski played at Madison College.

Key Losses
Dave Watson is with the team, but they are going to miss his bat in the line up as he has moved on to become an assistant coach for the Rangers. The only member of the team to earn any GLVC honors last year as a Third Team All-Conference selection.

Outlook
The Rangers have a number of places to improve upon from their 2010 season, but a drastic improvement needs to be made in pitching where the team had an above 8. They also walked more batters than they struck out, which is always a sign of doom.

Coach Weaver had a huge recruiting class of JUCO and Division I players that he hopes will help turn the program around in just one season. In just his second year on the job, Weaver has almost completely redone the Parkside lineup. It will be very interesting to see how these new players gel and to see if the state's lone Division II program can turn things around.

Three more Wisconsin teams ready to play some ball

With Viterbo and Milwaukee already started, many teams are licking their chops waiting to get their 2011 season started. This weekend, three more Wisconsin teams will have that chance as Parkside, Cardinal Stritch and MSOE will be in action in this the last week of February.

Parkside
The University of Wisconsin-Parkside will take on Winona State in a game that was originally scheduled for the Metrodome. For obvious reasons the game has been moved. According to the Parkside baseball website,

"After the collapse of the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis, the UW-Parkside and Winona State baseball teams needed to find an alternate location to play their four-game series Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 26-27. The series will now be played at Lenz Field in Jacksonville, Illinois."

Barring any kind of weather inconvenience, the two doubleheaders will be played at noon on Saturday and Sunday. Video for the game is available here and audio is available here. Stay tuned for a short preview on the Parkside tonight or tomorrow.

Cardinal Stritch
The Wolves will travel down to St. Louis to open the 2011 season with a pair of doubleheaders against Harris-Stowe State University.

The forecast is calling for highs in the 50's and 60's so it appears that all four games will be played. Harris-Stowe does not have any audio or video links mentioned.

A year ago, Stritch finished 16-35 overall and 8-22 in conference. They are, however, returning the Conference Player of the Year in Deano Mlachnik. The Wolves will look to him to guide the team towards a better record in 2011.

 MSOE
The Red Raiders will open up their schedule with a Sunday match-up against Franklin College. The game is one of nine that MSOE will play on their spring trip to Florida.

The Florida trip will take place over a six day span and will test the Red Raiders pitching staff, that by all indications looks to be young and inexperienced. Coach Troy Doering did have a very successful recruiting class and hopes that many of the young arms will come out strong.

Panthers win Sunday to prevent Tennessee sweep

The Milwaukee Panthers put up enough offense early in the game to hold on to defeat the Tennessee Volunteers 9-6 on Sunday afternoon.

Milwaukee's offense made quick work of Tennessee's starting pitcher Jerod Peper. The Panthers jumped on him for five runs in just 2.1 innings and saw 10 batters go to the plate in the four run third inning.

Leading the early charge was senior Cole Kraft with two hits (single and a double) and three RBI in the first three innings. Freshman Sam Koenig also provided an early life with two hits in the same span.

The Panthers added their sixth run of the game in the fourth and in the fifth, Ryan Solberg made his case to stay in the line-up. The freshmen took the first pitch he saw out of the yard for a three-run blast to extend the lead to 9-0.

Jordan Guth was great for Milwaukee through four innings, allowing just three hits and no Volunteer runs. However, a high pitch count caught up to the sophomore in the fifth inning and he was removed after giving up 4 runs in the frame.

Reliever Greg Blohowiak was asked to keep the five run lead for the Panthers. He entered with a man on first and one out and after hitting the first two batters he saw, he got Chris Fritts to ground into a 1-2-3 double play.

Blohowiak showed tremendous mental toughness in overcoming the two hit by pitches to get out of the jam. Any more damage in that situation and the complexion of the game would have changed completely.

In total, Blohowiak went 2.2 innings allowing two hits and zero runs to pick up the victory in relief. He gave way to Kyle Spurley in 8th, who recorded two outs and gave up two runs.

Cuyler Franzke was asked to shut the game down for the Panthers and he did just that, giving up no hits in 1.1 innings to pick up the save.

Interesting Panthers Notes

I was debating putting together a position by position breakdown of the Panthers as they head into opening weekend, but they beat me to the punch over on there site. Check it out here.

Nothing that stands out as completely earth shattering but definitely a few interesting items to take note of.

The first being Cole Kraft's move over to second base from shortstop. This would seem to mean that Tell Taylor, a freshmen from Burlington, will be taking over the job at short. Alex Erdmann, a redshirt sophomore out of Menomonee Falls, should also see some action, but you have to believe that if the Panthers are moving Kraft off of shortstop, they like what Taylor is showing them.

Third base and catcher could be trouble areas for Milwaukee as the team graduated a trio of key seniors that filled those roles a year ago. The Panthers are going with another freshmen, Sam Koenig, to fill the hole at third to start the season.

Catcher appears to be a scary spot for the Panthers. They do have a JUCO transfer in Brandon Davis and a sophomore with minimal playing experience in Drew Pearson, but anytime you have a regular infielder (who I believe didn't even catch in high school?) in Paul Hoenecke listed as an option for playing time it is a scary proposition.

Speaking of Hoenecke, he will be moved over to first base in what seems like a very good fit for him.

More pre-season praise for Panthers

The Milwaukee Panthers continued to garner respect in pre-season voting for the rapidly approaching 2011 season.

We already knew back in December that UWM was placed in the "other teams receiving votes" for Collegiate Baseball Newspaper's Div. I Top 40 poll, but the Panthers have now been recognized by two other sources.

The Horizon League coaches selected the Panthers to finish second behind Wright State.

Some might see this as more of an insult than an honor since the Panthers are returning a number of key players that led them to the NCAA Tournament a year ago. However, both teams received three first-place votes and Wright State had the slightest of leads on UWM at 32-31. Illinois-Chicago received the last first place vote.

The complete Poll is as follows:
2011 Horizon League Preseason Baseball Poll:1.  Wright State (3 first-place votes) -- 32 points
2.  Milwaukee (3) -- 31
3.  UIC (1) -- 27
4.  Valparaiso -- 24
T5. Butler -- 13
T5.  Youngstown State -- 13
7.  Cleveland State -- 7

CollegeBaseballInsider.com does a feature on every DI college baseball conference across the nation, for the Horizon league they connected with four out of the seven coaches to get results on; the best team, best starting pitchers, top closer, to defenders, and more.

The four coaches that placed a vote put the Panthers as the team to beat in the league. It would be very interesting to see which three coaches didn't place a ballot for this, as they clearly are the ones who did not regard the Panthers as the top team.

Chad Pierce, the Panthers ace, was named as one of the league's top three starters. Casey Henn of Wright State and Mike Hernandez of Butler were the others. 

Cameron Amsrud was named the league's top closer and Scott Doffek was tied for the best game coach along with Wright State's Rob Cooper.

It is tough for me to comment on the rest of the selections as I have not seen a lot of the players from around the conference play, but I believe more Panthers could have easily been recognized. Doug Dekoning can really cover some ground in center field and very well could have been included amongst the top defensive outfielders.

Jayme Sukowaty might not have the overpowering stuff and strikeout numbers that you would want from a pitcher, but he can flat out pitch. Definitely one of the more underrated pitchers in the league.

We are going to provide a major focus on the Panthers this week with their season kicking off on Friday. Keep checking out the page this week as we preview the Panthers and take a closer look at some position battles.

Also does anybody know if the game against Tennessee will be web cast anywhere? Feel free to comment if you know the answer.

UW-La Crosse baseball overcomes death sentence

By Nathan Woelfel

Chris Schwarz and the University of Wisconsin La Crosse baseball team have faced their fair share of adversity in recent years. However, most of their struggles have nothing to do with balls and strikes.

In the summer of 2009, Schwarz and his team were notified that the coaching staff could no longer receive a salary from the university due to school-wide budget cuts. Furthermore, a university policy stated that the team could only be run by a paid head coach. This in turn would force UW-L to drop baseball from its athletic program.

The outlook was bleak but the team wasn’t ready to give up. Just days after the initial announcement, the team successfully appealed to university officials and was able to begin fundraising for the upcoming season.
Ex-head coach Bill Terry helped take charge of the fundraising efforts.

“[Bill] was a voice in this from day one," said Schwarz. “He has a strong following of alumni.”

With a short term goal of over $30,000, the team and their supporters took to the streets in hopes of finding some desperately needed financial aid.

“It was grass roots, old fashioned, knocking and beating on doors," Schwarz said.

By May 10, 2010 the Eagles had raised enough money to keep the program alive for five additional seasons, thanks in large part to a guarantee from an anonymous source that took care of the expenses that fundraising could not cover. The source asked that the team organize a committee that would fundraise continuously.

The request was granted with the creation of Friends of Baseball at UW-L. The organization recently helped put together one of UW-L Baseball’s highest profile events to date.

Committee chairman Dan Kunz conceived the idea to combine forces with the La Crosse Loggers who hold an annual winter barbecue to help get their fans and their town thinking baseball.

The 2011 barbecue featured some highly esteemed guests, including former Milwaukee Brewers Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, Jim Gantner and Jerry Augustine. Augustine, a La Crosse alumni, has made a habit of standing by his former team.

“Jerry has always been a supporter of our program on many different levels," said Schwarz.

The former teammates entertained the crowd of over 1,100 people with a round table baseball discussion. All proceeds from the event went to UW-L baseball.

While the program has made significant strides financially, additional help is always appreciated. Prospective donors can find more information at www.saveuwlbaseball.com.

Schwarz feels that he will see the day when the program will no longer rely upon donations.

“I do not plan on fundraising forever,” said Schwarz. “Our current chancellor has intentions of putting us back in the budget (when funds allow it).”

Surprisingly, coach Schwarz, who is entering his seventh season at the helm of the Eagles, couldn’t be happier about where his team stands.

“I feel right now we are in a better position on and off the field than we have ever been.We are guardians of tradition and during our tenure we are not going to let it go away.”

More pre-season rankings for 2011

With opening day rapidly approaching for many local teams, more organizations have released their 2011  pre-season rankings. Unlike earlier polls, Wisconsin has no mention in the Division I, II or NAIA polls, but teams are well represented at the Division III level and Madison College is garnering a lot of pre-season respect at the JUCO Division II level. 

The NCBWA/D3Baseball.com Top 25 features five teams listed in the poll or receiving votes.

Stevens Point and Whitewater both rank in the top five of the poll with the Pointers sitting at #2 and the Warhawks at #5.

While no other Wisconsin team cracks the top 25,  three schools are listed in the "receiving votes" section; Oshkosh and Carthage both check in with 21 votes and Ripon is close behind with 12 votes.

It is nice to see some love for the Titans of Oshkosh who had a very successful recruiting class come in, but as always the pre-season rankings will mean nothing in a matter of weeks.

The NJCAA released a Top 15 Poll for Division II Junior Colleges and Madison College was ranked #7 nationally and #4 in a very deep region.