UW-Whitewater, ranked eleventh and twentieth in the two national polls, upped its record to 19-4, winning games 5-4  and 7-5 to sweep Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, on Tuesday.

box score game one
box score game two

The wins took extra effort, though, with game one requiring eleven innings and game two a Warhawk comeback. 

Whitewater and Luther were tied in the first game 1-1 going in to the eighth.  The Warhawks scored three times in the top of the eighth, the last two coming in on a Norse error with two outs.  Up 4-1, Steve Hedgepath (Sauk Prairie/Sauk Prairie), who had allowed ten hits by no earned runs, came out of the game for UW-W and was replaced by Jason Hooper (Lake Mills/Lake Mills).  Luther tied the game with three runs in the bottom of the ninth.  After a scoreless tenth, UW-W pushed across the winning run on a leadoff double by leftfielder Ben Prather (Chicago, IL/James B. Conant), who moved to third on a fly ball and scored on a sacrifice fly by catcher Matt Millar (Stoughton/Stoughton). 

Junior lefthander Joe Munn (Pleasanton, CA/Pleasanton) upped his record to 3-0 with three innings of two run, scoreless relief.  Munn struck out five in his stint.  Prather led Warhawk batters, going 3x5. 

Luther scored five times in the second inning of game two, with the big blow a bases clearing triple by sophomore catcher Zack Topping.  Whitewater got one of them back, with the help of three Norse errors, in the the third and one more in the fourth on two hits.  Whitewater scored what proved to be the game winners, pushing across five in the fifth, on just three hits.  A Norse error, two walks, a hit batsman and a three run double by Munn closed the scoring in the game. 

Game two was limited, by prior agreement, to seven innings.

Mike Jacobson (Oak Creek/Oak Creek), 4-1, toughed out the complete game for UW-W, giving up five hits, four earned runs, walking two and striking out six.  Munn had two hits and the three runs batted in and leftfielder Sam Petrasko (Appleton/East) added two hits.

UW-W is 19-4, and Luther is 9-11.  Whitewater will play at UW-Superior Saturday and Sunday.  The next home doubleheader for the Warhawks will be Wednesday, April 30th against Concordia University (WI) at 2:00.