2008 Woodie Awards
Baseball splits weekend series with Platteville
Adam Gruenewald
Issue date: 4/9/08 Section: Sports
Saturday
The UW-L men's baseball team dropped the first game 6-4 of the four game weekend home series against the UW-Platteville Pioneers.
With a light breeze keeping the weather relatively cool for fans, UW-L's junior starting pitcher Ross Benitz gave up an early run to the Pioneers when the throw to home on a grounder came too late.
The Eagles did score in the bottom half of the first inning when leadoff hitter Storm Gram scored on a RBI single by junior leftfielder Darren O'Donnell, who went 1 for 3 with a walk.
They quickly lost the tie when the Pioneers scored once when Benitz ran into trouble again giving up two straight singles to start the second inning, one of which came around to score.
Rightfielder Joey Casper led off the second with a single, but first baseman Mitchell Moe grounded into a double play.
"I always like to swing at first pitch," said Casper. "If it's a first pitch fastball, I'm swinging at it. Anything else I usually let it go until I get down in the count and have to swing."
With the score 5-1 going into the bottom of the sixth, the Eagles finally got their offense going against Platteville's Joe Lange.
"It wasn't anything that we haven't seen before," said Casper. "In baseball there are a lot of ups and downs and we're kind of in a down right now."
Senior designated hitter Mike Schmidt reached on a fielding error, third baseman Tony Peterson hit a single to left center, and Casper was hit by a pitch to load the bases with nobody out.
Mitchell flew out to right field, but catcher Cory Poppitz singled to score one and keep the bases full.
Shortstop Dusty Otto reached on an error to score one more, but after Gram flew out to center the inning ended when Poppitz left second early and was called out.
Otto said "that's about the only momentum we had in the whole game really."
The Eagles last chance at scoring came in the eighth inning with the score 6-4, when Peterson got an infield single but Casper grounded into a double play and with that, the threat was over.
The UW-L men's baseball team dropped the first game 6-4 of the four game weekend home series against the UW-Platteville Pioneers.
With a light breeze keeping the weather relatively cool for fans, UW-L's junior starting pitcher Ross Benitz gave up an early run to the Pioneers when the throw to home on a grounder came too late.
The Eagles did score in the bottom half of the first inning when leadoff hitter Storm Gram scored on a RBI single by junior leftfielder Darren O'Donnell, who went 1 for 3 with a walk.
They quickly lost the tie when the Pioneers scored once when Benitz ran into trouble again giving up two straight singles to start the second inning, one of which came around to score.
Rightfielder Joey Casper led off the second with a single, but first baseman Mitchell Moe grounded into a double play.
"I always like to swing at first pitch," said Casper. "If it's a first pitch fastball, I'm swinging at it. Anything else I usually let it go until I get down in the count and have to swing."
With the score 5-1 going into the bottom of the sixth, the Eagles finally got their offense going against Platteville's Joe Lange.
"It wasn't anything that we haven't seen before," said Casper. "In baseball there are a lot of ups and downs and we're kind of in a down right now."
Senior designated hitter Mike Schmidt reached on a fielding error, third baseman Tony Peterson hit a single to left center, and Casper was hit by a pitch to load the bases with nobody out.
Mitchell flew out to right field, but catcher Cory Poppitz singled to score one and keep the bases full.
Shortstop Dusty Otto reached on an error to score one more, but after Gram flew out to center the inning ended when Poppitz left second early and was called out.
Otto said "that's about the only momentum we had in the whole game really."
The Eagles last chance at scoring came in the eighth inning with the score 6-4, when Peterson got an infield single but Casper grounded into a double play and with that, the threat was over.
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