St. Olaf jumped out to a quick lead on UW-Stevens Point and hung on for a 7-3 victory with the tying run at the plate in the ninth inning to stay alive in the NCAA Division III baseball regional on Thursday in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.

The Oles, who were no-hit in their opening game on Wednesday, got a two-run homer from Chris Terrazas in the first inning and a three-run blast from Josh Schultheis for an early 6-1 lead. St. Olaf then rode the arm of Paul Johnson, who threw eight-plus innings and worked out of several jams. Johnson allowed a hit and a walk to the first two batters in the ninth, but Todd Mathison came on to get a game-ending double play and help the Oles improve to 33-9 overall. Johnson allowed eight hits and two earned runs while striking out eight.

St. Olaf advances to face UW-Oshkosh in an elimination game on Friday at 3:30 p.m. UW-Stevens Point, which lost its first game of the tournament and had an eight-game winning streak snapped to slip to 29-15 overall, takes on either Ripon or St. Thomas in an elimination contest on Friday at noon.

After their no-hit outing in the first game, St. Olaf's second batter of the game, Carson Jones, lined a triple off the center field fence to spark the Oles' offense. After a strikeout, Terrazas homered to left field for the early lead.

The Pointers' Jordan Zimmermann (Auburndale/Auburndale) drove in a run with a double in the third following an Oles' error and UW-Stevens Point had runners on second and third with one out, but Johnson was able to wiggle out of the threat.

St. Olaf then took advantage of four Pointers' walks in the bottom of the third and got a run-scoring fielder's choice by Terrazas before Schultheis cleared the fence in left field for a 6-1 lead.

Pointers' starter Brandon Hemstead (DeForest/DeForest) allowed six runs in two and one-third innings before Travis Kempf (Kewaskum/Kewaskum) and Jeremy Dunnihoo (Manawa/Manawa) finished up by allowing no earned runs over five and two-thirds innings to give the Pointers a chance at a comeback. Kempf worked out of several jams himself, stranding the bases loaded in the third and fifth and two runners in the sixth. Both teams left 11 runners on base as the Pointers stranded runners in every inning but the seventh.

The Pointers scored one run in the eighth on a run-scoring groundout by Justin Bushong (Rhinelander/Rhinelander), but left another runner at third base and trailed 7-2 entering the ninth. They scored one run when a potential game-ending double play ball hit by Adam Evanoff (Plover/SPASH) was mishandled, leaving the bases loaded with one out for Brandon Scheidler (Chippewa Falls/McDonell), who grounded to second base and was called out on a close play at first.

Stewart Larsen (Sturgeon Bay/Sturgeon Bay) and Joel Hojnacki (Plover/SPASH) each had two hits for the Pointers, while Jones was three-for-four for the Oles. Terrazas and Josh Maus also had two hits apiece.