UW-Whitewater came from behind to defeat Otterbein College 3-2 Friday in Port Charlotte, Florida.  The loss upped the sixteenth Warhawks' record to 3-2 and gave Otterbein, 3-1, its first loss of 2009.

box score

Whitewater opened the scoring, with Ben Kuhlmann (Minneapolis, MN/Southwest) leading off with a triple in the top of the first.  He came home on a sacrifice fly by Sam Petrasko (Appleton/East). 

Otterbein took the lead in the second, scoring twice after two outs.  With men on second and third and two out, one run scored on a Warhawk error and John Quimby drove in the second with a single.

The game stayed 2-1 Otterbein through seven innings.  Whitewater evened the game at 2-2 on Petrasko's RBI single in an inning prolonged by an Otterbein error. 

UW-W came through in the clutch again in the top of the ninth.  After Alex Hayes had struck out the first two Warhawks, Tony Wong (Appleton/West) reached on an error by the first baseman, then stole second.  Travis Wessels (Tomah/Tomah) singled, and Wong came all the way around as the centerfielder was charged with a two-base error. 

Doug Hanson (Grayslake, IL/Grayslake) tossed the first seven innings for UW-W.  He did not surrendeer an earned run, walked just one and struck out ten.  Riley Tincher (Oregon/Oregon) picked up the win, his first as a Warhawk, with two innings of one-hit relief.  Wessels had half of UW-W's six hits to lead the offense. 

The Otterbein game was the first of two Friday for the Warhawks.  UW-W is scheduled to play Carthage College in the second game of the day.

For additional information:  John Vodenlich, UW-W head coach