SUPERIOR, Wis. – The No. 15-ranked UW-Stevens Point baseball team began the final weekend of Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) play by sweeping UW-Superior 16-2 in seven innings and 5-4 on Saturday afternoon at Ted Whereatt Field.

No. 15 UW-Stevens Point 16, UW-Superior 2 (7 inn.) | Box

Jimmy Coady (La Crosse, WI/Aquinas) and Cody Hanke (Marathon, WI/Marathon) each drove in four runs and Riley Spetz (Sturgeon Bay, WI/Sevastopol) and Kyle McHugh (Polonia, WI/Rosholt) knocked in three apiece to power UW-Stevens Point (25-11, 14-8 WIAC) to a 16-2 win in the opener. Hanke matched his career high with four hits, going 4-for-5 and fell a home run short of the cycle.

McHugh opened the scoring with his seventh home run of the season, a two-run shot to left field with one out in the first inning. The Pointers added two runs on back-to-back RBI hits by Riley Spetz (Sturgeon Bay, WI/Sevastopol) and Alex Tarras (Weston, WI/D.C. Everest) in the second. The RBI was Tarras' first of the season.

UW-Stevens Point scored 13 of its 16 runs with two outs, including all 11 runs in the sixth and seventh innings. With two outs and runners on second and third in the sixth, five Pointers' batters reached base in a row, including two-run hits by Spetz, Coady and Hanke.

In the seventh, the middle of the UWSP lineup again did the two-out damage. Coady followed a McHugh RBI double with a two-run triple and Hanke then completed the scoring with a run-scoring single to right.

Mark Kowalke (Baraboo, WI/Baraboo) threw his third complete game of the season, allowing two runs, one earned, on 11 hits but stranded nine runners. The junior walked just one batter and fanned four to move to 4-3 this season.

UW-Superior (6-31-1, 2-20 WIAC) scored single runs in the fifth and sixth innings. Seth Wage was 3-for-3 for the Yellowjackets, while Greg Pitts and Alex Quinones each had two base hits.

Spetz was 3-for-4 with three runs and matched his season-high with three RBI. Hanke's four-RBI game was his sixth game this season with at least four RBI. McHugh reached base four times, going 2-for-3 with two walks, a home run, three runs and three RBI.

No. 15 UW-Stevens Point 5, UW-Superior 4 | Box

Spetz's two-out RBI single to right center in the top of the eighth accounted for the game-winning run in a back-and-forth nightcap, as the Pointers edged the Yellowjackets 5-4. By recording three hits in each game, Spetz has now reached safely in 41-straight games dating back to last season and has a 14-game hitting streak.

The single gave UW-Stevens Point a 5-3 lead but UW-Superior threatened to tie the game in the bottom of the eighth. With runners on second and third and one out, the Yellowjackets got one run back on a groundout off the bat of Jordan Koepp, leaving the tying run at second with two outs, but Nick Prebelski (Green Bay, WI/Notre Dame) retired the final batter of the inning and recorded two strikeouts in a 1-2-3 ninth to earn his second save of the season.

UW-Superior took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the third, scoring on back-to-back RBI singles by Matt Vold and Quinones. UW-Stevens Point tied the game in the top of the fourth on the second home run of the year by Ray Greco (Downers Grove, IL/North), a two-run shot to left.

Coady's one-out RBI double to left center in the fifth gave the Pointers a 3-2 lead but the lead did not last long. The Yellowjackets tied the game on a wild pitch on a walk that allowed Wage to score from second.

Bobby Gregorich (Plover, WI/SPASH) gave UW-Stevens Point its second one-run lead of the game with a solo home run to lead off the top of the seventh. The home run was Gregorich's career-high fifth of the season, eclipsing his total of four from last season.

Cole Erickson (Deerfield, WI/Deerfield) allowed three runs, two earned, on four hits in 4.1 innings with four strikeouts before giving way to Heinrich Walder (Rosholt, WI/Rosholt), who allowed just one hit in 1.2 innings of work to earn his first collegiate victory. Christian Hall threw a complete game for the Yellowjackets, allowing five runs on 10 hits with five walks and six strikeouts.

The two teams complete their four-game weekend set with a second-straight doubleheader on Sunday, May 3, beginning at 10 a.m. in Superior.