WATERLOO, Iowa – Parker Bolt threw a complete game as third-seeded Wartburg dealt top-seeded UW-Stevens Point its first defeat of the Central Regional by a 4-2 score on Friday afternoon at River Front Stadium.
 
Box Score
 
Bolt went the distance for Wartburg (33-13) to improve to 7-4, allowing two runs on eight hits with eight strikeouts and one walk, as the Knights staved off elimination. UW-Stevens Point (32-13) outhit Wartburg 8-5 in the game but stranded seven runners and committed a pair of errors in the field.
 
The Pointers will now play an elimination game against fourth-seeded Anderson (Ind.), which fell to second-seeded Webster 4-3 on Friday night. Both teams are 1-1 in the regional. The Knights will play fifth-seeded Carthage at 3:30 p.m. on Saturday in an elimination game.
 
Wartburg scored single runs in each of the first three innings to build a 3-0 lead after two and a half. The Knights scored on a two-out, two-base error in the first, a solo home run by Blake Wilson to right-center in the second and a wild pitch.
 
UW-Stevens Point got on the board in the bottom of the third on an RBI groundout by Jimmy Coady (La Crosse, WI/Aquinas). Coady got the Pointers within one in the fifth, drilling a two-out single up the middle to score Ray Greco (Downers Grove, IL/North).
 
The Knights added an insurance run in the eighth when Jackson Litterer scored on a controversial play at the plate on a double by DJ Utley. Ryan Kemp scored two of Wartburg's four runs in the game and was one of just three hitters to record a hit for the Knights.
 
Heinrich Walder (Rosholt, WI/Rosholt) allowed one run in 4.1 innings of relief for UW-Stevens Point. Litterer's leadoff walk to start the eighth inning was the only batter to reach off the sophomore but Litterer later scored on Utley's double off Nick Prebelski (Green Bay, WI/Notre Dame).
 
Prebelski allowed one hit and struck out one in two innings. Mark Kowalke (Baraboo, WI/Baraboo) started for UWSP but was chased after 2.2 innings after allowing three runs and walking four.
 
Riley Spetz (Sturgeon Bay, WI/Sevastopol) and Kyle McHugh (Polonia, WI/Rosholt) each had two of UW-Stevens Point's eight hits. Spetz extended his streak of reaching base safely to 50 games and one of McHugh's two singles hit halfway up the high wall in left.
 
The loss was just the seventh time this season the Pointers have been held to two runs or fewer and UWSP is 2-5 in those games.