April 15, 2008

Box Score: Game 1
Box Score: Game 2

MILWAUKEE - The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee baseball team used solid pitching and timely hitting to sweep both games of a doubleheader against Bradley University in its home opener Tuesday at Henry Aaron Field. The Panthers (11-21) overcame a 3-0 deficit to win game one, 4-3, and then earned a 4-2 victory in the nightcap over the Braves (16-17) to record the doubleheader sweep. Milwaukee has now won six of its past seven games and improved to 15-3 all-time in home openers at the NCAA Division I level.

"It was great to be home - 30 games on the road - these guys have been through a lot," UWM head coach Scott Doffek said. "That is a lot to ask of any team and I know they were really happy to finally be home. It was definitely important to get the solid starts from those two guys because our bullpen was tired after last weekend. To give the pen a little bit of rest was good."

After dropping its first nine one-run games of the season, the Panthers have reversed the course and won all of their close games of late. In fact, all six of the victories in the past week have been one-run (four games) or two-run (two games) victories.

"Baseball is kind of like that some times with the ebbs and flows of the season, but once again we came up with a couple of critical two-out hits and they had a couple chances to do the same but could not," Doffek said. "We played good defense throughout the day today and, for the most part, threw strikes."

Down 3-0 after two innings in the opener, Milwaukee started its comeback with a run in each of the second and third innings. Sophomore Wes Munson started the scoring in the second, plating a run on a single through the left side. Another tally came home on a wild pitch to cut it to 3-2 in the third.

The fifth inning provided the difference, as UWM scored once on junior Ben Long's single and again on a ground out to take the 4-3 lead.

The pitching took care of the rest. Junior starter Tim Hoy (1-3) earned the win, settling down very nicely after giving up the early runs. He faced the minimun in the third, fourth and fifth innings before giving way to junior Brad Lusti for the sixth for a 1-2-3 inning and senior Matt Holzheuter then nailed down the save with a 1-2-3 inning of his own. Hoy allowed six hits and three runs, walking one and striking out two.

Offensively, Milwaukee banged out 10 hits, with seniors Jesse Hart and Nick Wichser, Long and Munson all recording two each.

Scoreless into the bottom of the fourth of game two, the Panthers jumped out in front with a two-run inning, scoring once on a BU error and again on a suicide squeeze executed by sophomore junior Andy Hetebrueg.

After Bradley got on the board in the fifth, UWM struck for two more in its half of the frame, with Wichser doubling in a run and senior Troy Velsing also coming through with a clutch run-scoring hit after the batter in front of him was intentionally walked.

Freshman Cuyler Franzke (2-0) threw well, allowing just one hit in the first inning before retiring 10 of the next 11 batters. He went 5.0 innings, giving up just one earned run and recording a strikeout. Junior Craig Meier did the rest, working two innings for his first save of the year, giving up two hits and also striking out one batter.

At the plate, Wichser extended his hitting streak to 24 games with a 2-for-3 day while also scoring twice. He was the only Panther with more than one hit in the contest.

It will be a busy weekend next, as the team travels to Ohio for Horizon League doubleheaders on Saturday at Cleveland State and Sunday at Youngstown State.