Box Score WHITEWATER, Wis. – Despite a strong pitching performance by Cam Seidl (Appleton, WI/Fox Valley Lutheran), the third-seeded and 12th-ranked UW-Stevens Point baseball team dropped its opener at the 2014 Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Baseball Championship 2-1 to second-seeded UW-La Crosse on Friday afternoon at Prucha Field.
 
Box Score
 
Seidl held UW-La Crosse (25-14), the top hitting team in the WIAC, to just five hits in eight innings and did not walk a batter in the loss. However, Ben Cejka limited UW-Stevens Point (28-10) to one run on eight hits in a complete game to improve to 7-2.
 
The Eagles scored the game-winning run in the bottom of the seventh and Cejka held the Pointers scoreless in the final two innings. After Joel Zyhowski was hit by a pitch to start the inning, he came around to score on a triple by Joel Greenland into right center.
 
Zyhowski's run broke a 1-1 tie after the team's traded third-inning runs. UW-Stevens Point's run came on the eighth home run of the season by Cody Hanke (Marathon, WI/Marathon). The Eagles tied the score on an infield single by Taylor Kohlwey, the WIAC's leading hitter, that scored Josh Rowles who had doubled to start the inning.
 
The Pointers threatened to tie the game in the top of the ninth but came up empty. A double play erased Brandon Kranz (Waukesha, WI/West)'s leadoff single but Bobby Gregorich (Plover, WI/SPASH) and Casey Barnes (Mequon, WI/Homestead) followed with singles, leaving runners at first and second. Cejka then struck out Hanke for the final out.
 
Kranz and Gregorich each had two of the eight UWSP hits. No UW-La Crosse hitter had more than one hit.
 
UW-Stevens Point takes on fourth-seeded UW-Stout, which lost 15-14 in 10 innings to top-seeded UW-Whitewater, in an elimination game later on Friday afternoon.