With two games in two days staring the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee baseball team in the face, the Panthers were hoping to be able to finish April with a record above .500. Going into Tuesday the team was 9-10 and a home game against Northern Illinois University and a trip down to Northwestern University gave the Panthers the opportunity to accomplish that feat.

In the first of the two games, Milwaukee looked to show their home crowd what they were made of in only their third home appearance of the season.

The pitching duel saw its first runs come across in the top of the third inning when NIU managed to take advantage of a few Panther errors. UWM committed three errors in the top half of the frame, accounting for three of the four Huskie runs.

With the wind blowing in, a 4-0 lead looked mighty challenging. After trading a pair of runs in the seventh, the Panthers headed into the bottom of the ninth down 5-1. Down to their final out, senior Troy Vesling hit a two-run home run to left field to cut that lead in half.

After allowing the tying run to come to the plate, NIU head coach Ed Mathey finally went to his bullpen and relieved starter Matt Jernstad with closer Andy Deain, who recorded the final out for his fifth save of the season.

Overshadowed by Jernstad’s impressive near-complete game performance was Panther pitcher Tim Hoy. The junior from Hartland, Wis. tossed six solid innings, allowing only one earned run while striking out a career high seven batters. The pitching unit as a whole struck out 10 Huskies on the day.

Following their first home loss, the Panthers traveled to Chicago less than 24 hours later to take on Northwestern University.

Finding themselves in a 1-0 hole in the third inning, junior Shawn Wozniak extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a three-run home run to right-center to take a 3-1 lead. Jesse Hart also set a school record with his 59th career double in the fourth inning.

After going deep in the third inning, the Panthers played a little small-ball in the following two frames to plate three more runs and break the game open.

Ben McClarey pitched a solid 6 2/3 innings allowing only two earned runs and seven hits, earning his first win of the season.

The Big Ten opponent wasn’t going away quietly into the night, however. With the help of a few UWM fielding errors, Northwestern was able to score four runs of their own and bring the lead to just one.

Once again UWM pitchers were able to buckle down and get out of some sticky situations. Senior Adam Ferrell didn’t allow for any drama as he only allowed one base runner in the final two innings.

The Panthers finished April just one game under .500. Considering only three games were played at home, that should be considered quite the accomplishment.

> Comments