UW-L Splits Series with UW-Platteville

For Immediate Release: Sunday, April 6, 2008

La Crosse, Wis. – The UW-La Crosse baseball team split a conference doubleheader with UW-Platteville Sunday afternoon at North Campus Field. The Pioneers won the opener, 8-6, but the Eagles took the nightcap, 14-4 in seven innings. UW-L is now 10-10 overall and 3-5 in the WIAC while UW-Platteville is 11-9 overall and 5-3 in the league. The teams split their four-game weekend series.

In the opener, the Pioneers took a 1-0 lead in the top of the second as Mike Kuhn scored on a Brett Benesh groundout. The Eagles took a 2-1 lead in the fourth on Darren O'Donnell's RBI triple and Tony Peterson's run-scoring single. UW-L made it 4-1 on Tyler Peterson's two-run home run in the fifth. UW-Platteville came back to force a 4-4 tie with three runs in the sixth, highlighted by a two-run Benesh single. Dusty Otto gave UW-L a 6-4 lead with a two-out two-run double in the sixth scoring Tony Peterson and Mike Schmidt, but UW-Platteville tallied four times in the seventh. Benesh and Ross Bennett had RBI singles.

Corey Connolly (2-0) earned the win, pitching 1.0 inning with one strikeout. Joe Cox started for UW-Platteville, pitching 5.1 innings, allowing four hits, four runs (three earned) and one walk. Tim Larson (1-1) took the loss for UW-L, going 1.0 inning, allowing three hits and four runs (one earned). Britton Wolf started and went 5.0 innings, allowing six hits, four runs and three walks with three strikeouts.

Benesh finished 3-for-5 for the Pioneers with a run scored and four RBI. Kuhn, Lee Hawkins and Matt Paulus each scored twice. The bottom four in UW-Platteville's line-up scored seven of the team's eight runs. Tyler Peterson was 3-for-3 for UW-L with a run scored and two RBI. Otto also had two RBI.

In the nightcap, O'Donnell gave the Eagles 1-0 lead on a single in the first and Schmidt made it 2-0 with a run-scoring double. UW-Platteville tied it 2-2 in the second, but UW-L scored twice in the bottom of the inning on Storm Gram's two-run double. Tony Peterson had an RBI double in the third for a 5-2 lead before Hawkins cut the lead to 5-3 with a home run in the fourth for UW-Platteville.

O'Donnell had an RBI single in the fourth for UW-L and after the Pioneers cut the lead to 6-4 with a run in the top of the fifth, UW-L tallied five times in the bottom of the inning, highlighted by Gram's three-run home run. Otto added a two-run triple and Corey Poppitz a run-scoring single in the sixth for the Eagles. Greg Gibson finished the scoring with an RBI single in the bottom of the seventh.

Tony Peterson (1-1) earned the win, going 5.0 innings, allowing seven hits, four runs (two earned) and two walks while striking out four. Kyle Brudos (0-2) took the loss, pitching 2.1 innings, allowing six hits, five runs and two walks with one strikeout.

Gram was 3-for-3 at the plate for UW-L with three runs scored and five RBI. Gibson finished 3-for-4 with two runs scored and an RBI while O'Donnell and Otto each had two RBI. Otto also scored three times. Schmidt finished with two runs scored and two hits. Matt Paulus was 2-for-3 for UW-Platteville.

UW-L returns to action Wednesday, April 9 at UW-Stout in a WIAC doubleheader at 1 p.m.