STEVENS POINT, Wis. – Strong pitching performances from
Mitch Beau (Fond du Lac, WI/St. Mary Springs) and
Mark Kowalke (Baraboo, WI/Baraboo) led the No. 10 UW-Stevens Point baseball team to a doubleheader sweep of St. Norbert by scores of 7-4 and 3-2 on Saturday afternoon at University Field in the team's first home games of the season.
No. 10 UW-Stevens Point 7, St. Norbert 4 | Box Beau held St. Norbert (7-7) to one earned run over six innings in a no-decision and UW-Stevens Point (9-3) used a three-run eighth to pull away from the Green Knights in the opener.
The Pointers broke a 3-3 tie in the bottom of the seventh on an RBI groundout by
Peter Strommen (Madison, WI/East). UWSP then scored three in the eighth, two on a single by
Cody Hanke (Marathon, WI/Marathon) and one on a
Jimmy Coady (La Crosse, WI/Aquinas) single, in the eighth to take a 7-3 advantage and held on for the win.
Ben Miller (Union Grove, WI/Union Grove) picked up his team-best third win of the season after allowing one run on one hit in three innings of relief of Beau. Beau allowed three runs on four hits with six strikeouts in the no-decision.
Kyle McHugh (Polonia, WI/Rosholt) led the Pointers' offense, going 3-for-4 with a walk, a run and two RBI.
Riley Spetz (Sturgeon Bay, WI/Sevastopol) and
Bobby Gregorich (Plover, WI/SPASH) each had two hits and combined to score three runs.
No. 10 UW-Stevens Point 3, St. Norbert 2 | Box Kowalke allowed just one earned run in seven innings of work to pick up the first win of his UWSP career. The junior limited St. Norbert to one run on three hits and recorded nine strikeouts.
Heinrich Walder (Rosholt, WI/Rosholt) took over for Kowalke for the final two innings and earned his second save of the season. The freshman allowed one run in the eighth, ending a run of 12.1 scoreless innings to start his collegiate career.
UW-Stevens Point scored runs on groundouts by McHugh and Hanke to get out to an early 2-0 lead. The Green Knights got their lone run off Kowalke on a double by Tyler Klegin in the third but did not score again until the eighth.
Parker Sadowski (Beaver Dam, WI/Beaver Dam) gave the Pointers a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the seventh by singling in
Taylor Carlson (Madison, WI/LaFollette), who had opened the inning with a double.
UW-Stevens Point opens Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) play on Thursday, April 2 against UW-Stout. The Pointers and Blue Devils start a doubleheader at 1 p.m. at University Field.