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)