Box Score McMINNVILLE, Ore. – Top-seed and defending national champion Linfield gave the fourth-seed UW-Stevens Point baseball team its first loss of the McMinnville Regional, a 3-2 defeat on Friday afternoon at Roy Helser Field at Jim Wright Stadium.
 
Box Score
 
UW-Stevens Point (31-12) thought it had tied the game on a solo home run by Kyle McHugh (Polonia, WI/Rosholt) in the bottom of the eighth inning but Linfield (36-7) appealed and McHugh was called out for not touching first base.
 
The Wildcats advance to the McMinnville Regional Championship on Saturday against an opponent yet to be determined. The Pointers will take on the loser of an elimination game between second-seed Cal Lutheran and sixth-seed LeTourneau on Friday night at 7 p.m. Pacific.
 
Linfield jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on solo home runs by Nick Fisher in the first and Jo Carroll in the second. Both home runs came off UWSP starter Tyler Flood (Madison, WI/La Follette), who took the loss after giving up three runs in 3.2 innings.
 
UW-Stevens Point came back with a run in the third. Casey Barnes (Mequon, WI/Homestead) led off the inning with a single and moved to third on a groundout and a wild pitch. He then scored on a single by Riley Spetz (Sturgeon Bay, WI/Sevastopol), who was 3-for-4 for the second straight game.
 
The Widcats reestablished a two-run lead in the top of the fourth courtesy of a single by Scott Hilpert after singles by Eric Lawson and Kenny Johnson, who was 4-for-4 in the game. Brad Stroik (Stevens Point, WI/SPASH) left the bases loaded in the frame after coming on for Flood and threw 4.1 scoreless innings in relief. Stroik also escaped a first and third, nobody out jam in the seventh.
 
The score remained 3-1 until the bottom of the seventh when the Pointers climbed to within one again. Taylor Carlson (Madison, WI/LaFollette) and Cody Hanke (Marathon, WI/Marathon) started the inning with back-to-back singles, leaving runners at the corners and Carlson later scored on Barnes' sacrifice fly.
 
Linfield's Zach Manley earned a save with three perfect innings of relief of starter Zach Brandon. Brandon picked up the win to go to 8-1 this season by giving up two runs on six hits in six innings.
 
Every Linfield starter except leadoff hitter Corey VanDomelen had at least one hit, as the Wildcats tallied 12 hits in the game. UW-Stevens Point had six hits in the game, as Carlson, Hanke and Barnes each had one in addition to Spetz's three-hit game.