The UW-Whitewater baseball team finished third at the National Collegiate Athletics Association Division III World Series at Fox Cities Stadium in Grand Chute, Wisconsin Monday after a 12-11 loss to Johns Hopkins University. The Warhawks, who went 3-2 in the Series, finished the season with a record of 42-10 while Johns Hopkins advances to the Division III championship game against undefeated Trinity (Conn.) Tuesday.
UW-Whitewater post-season website
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In a game that seemed to have UW-Whitewater constantly rallying back from a deficit, it was Johns Hopkins that would eventually prevail by scoring the go ahead run in the bottom of the ninth. This game had more twists and turns than a daytime soap or Formula One race.
Johns Hopkins led 1-0 in the first ... Whitewater tied it 1-1 in the second ...Johns Hopkins went up 3-1 in the third ... Whitewater took a 4-3 lead in the top of the fourth ... Johns Hopkins went ahead 6-4 in the bottom of the fourth ... Whitewater scored twice in the fifth to tie it 6-6 ... Johns Hopkins scored three in the bottom of the sixth to go up 9-6 ... Whitewater evened the score 9-9 in the top of the seventh ... Johns Hopkins back up 11-9 with two in the bottom of the seventh ... Whitewater tied it 11-11 in the eighth. That set the stage for the final lead change or tie-breaker, with Johns Hopkins scoring the winning tally in the bottom of the ninth.
The teams combined for 23 runs, 38 hits, nine extra base hits, seven pitchers, unusual plays (of all types), a little bit (or in some cases a lot) of everything.
Among the highlights for UW-W:
Kevin Zalnis (Woodstock, IL/Woodstock) hit his nineteenth home run of the season, breaking the mark of 18 formerly held by Brady Endl (2004) and Pat Tobiasz (1998);
Ben Prather (Chicago, IL/James B. Conant) wound up with 78 hits, third in the school record book;
Prather's 195 career hits is third all-time, with Greg Harder (Waukesha/Waukesha West) in sixth;
Mike Jacobson (Oak Creek/Oak Creek), Adam Dominick (Waukesha/Waukesha West), Jordan Stine (Merrill/Merrill), Jeff Donovan (Wauwatosa/Wauwatosa East), Billy Johnson (Kenosha/Kenosha Tremper), and Aaron Dott (Green Lake/Green Lake) all etched their names in numerous categories in the annals of Warhawk baseball --- as did the 2008 team putting an exclamation point on the most successful season in Warhawk athletics history.
The forty-two wins for UW-W is the second most in school history, topped only by the 2005 team that won forty-five games and finished first in the World Series. This year's third place finish ties the second best finish by a UW-Whitewater baseball team at the NCAA Division III World Series (also 2004).
