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UWM Heads Into Final Month Of Regular Season At Home

Panthers in the midst of 12-game homestand

April 30, 2007

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee baseball team continues its 12-game homestand this week with seven games, starting with a doubleheader against Carroll College on Tuesday. Then, the Panthers welcome Northern Illinois for two games Wednesday before Cleveland State heads to town for a weekend series.

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On Tuesday, Carroll and Milwaukee will square-off in just the second-ever meeting between the two schools. Carroll, an NCAA Division III program, was a late addition to the Panthers schedule after all of the cancellations this spring. UWM won last year, 7-5, at home. The twinbill is slated for a 4 p.m. start.

Wednesday's doubleheader against Northern Illinois gets underway at 2 p.m. It was originally set to be just one game, but it is now two after UWM got rained out of a road trip to play the Huskies last week. The Panthers lead in the series fell to 16-14 last season when they dropped an 8-7 decision at home in May. Down 8-5 in the ninth, UWM plated two runs but ended up leaving the bases loaded in the defeat.

Milwaukee leads the series with Cleveland State by a 41-15 count after taking two of three at Cleveland State April 20-21. Last season, the Panthers went 6-1 against the Vikings, including a win in a Horizon League Tournament elimination contest and a three-game sweep at home where they outscored CSU 31-11.

The 2007 campaign marks the 38th season of varsity baseball at UWM and the 17th in the Panthers NCAA Division I era.

SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
CARROLL: The Pioneers had games that were postponed against Lakeland Sunday and have last taken the field on April 24 when they dropped two games to Marian College, losing 9-4 and 7-2. First-year head coach Jason Kosanke has his team at 7-19 overall on the season (but just 1-13 in the past 14 games) and is led by Chris Elliott on the offensive side with a .376 average, five home runs and 21 runs batted in. The pitching staff has struggled, carrying a team ERA of 8.10 with opponents batting .360 against it.

NORTHERN ILLINOIS: The Huskies are 22-18 overall and will play at Northwestern Tuesday before heading to Milwaukee for a double-dip on Wednesday. The team is batting .286, led by four regulars over .300. Danny Reed leads the way at .357 and also has four home runs and 23 runs batted in. Jesse Seykora is a major piece of the offensive puzzle, batting .314 with a team-high eight home runs, 35 RBIs and 36 runs scored.

On the pitching staff, starters Trevor Feeney (4-5, 4.12 ERA) and Matt Jernstad (3-2, 4.50 ERA) have been solid, while relievers Andy Deain and Matt German have been impressive. Deain is 3-1 with a 0.76 ERA in 19 games, while German is also 3-1 and carries a 1.47 ERA and eight saves. He has struck out 40 batters in 30.2 innings and has a .164 batting average against.

CLEVELAND STATE: The Vikings dropped all four games last week, including a three-game sweep at the hands of front-runner UIC. They enter this week at 10-30 overall and 7-10 in loop play, facing Ohio and Duquesne in mid-week action before a crucial three-game weekend series at UW-Milwaukee. CSU dropped two of three games to the Panthers earlier this season, and third-place UWM leads the Vikings by a game in the league standings.

All four starting pitchers allowed at least five runs last week. The starters allowed 26 runs (20 earned) on 30 hits in 19.2 innings, a 9.15 ERA. Despite the team's rocky week, Stephen Procner ranks second in the league in strikeouts (53, one behind Butler's Jon Dages) and innings pitched (73.1), while Josh Hungerman is third with 50 K's in 58.1 innings of work. Hungerman's 3.09 ERA puts him fourth in the circuit in that category, as well. Wallace Richardson leads the Vikings with a .280 batting average and a .398 slugging percentage. John Westra is next at .274, while Matt Madrid reclaimed the top spot on the team RBI list with 20. Madrid drove in four runs last week, batting .308 (4-for-13).

JUST KEEP PLAYING THE "TEMPORARY" SCHEDULE
The Panthers went 1-3 in four games last week, but had two more games cancelled (at Northern Illinois Wednesday) and had their weekend schedule rearranged due to the weather as well. In fact, UWM has now had games postponed or cancelled 12 times this spring. The Panthers went 1-3 in the past seven days, falling to Northwestern, 10-7, on Tuesday before dropping two of three to Wright State on the weekend. Offensively, juniors Nick Wichser (.529, more on him in a bit), Jesse Hart (.412, him too) and Grant Berkovitz (.375, six RBIs) all had big weeks, while junior Brandon Duffy (1.2 innings), sophomore Tim Hoy (2.1 IP), senior Tom Zimmerman (1.2 IP) and sophomore Jordan Herbert (1.0 IP) all had perfect 0.00 earned run averages.

"WIX" IN THE OFFENSIVE MIX
Junior Nick Wichser made a big impression last week, collecting nine hits in 17 at bats to lead the team with a .529 average. In the four games he scored seven runs and drove in four. He also collected two doubles, a triple and a home run for a .941 slugging percentage to go with his .556 on-base percentage. He raised his season average from .223 to .267 on the week.

HART TO HART
Junior Jesse Hart is UWM's leading hitter so far this season, posting a .375 average through 35 games to climb back into the Top 10 (currently tied for No. 5) on the Horizon League charts. It was actually up to as high as .386 before the start of Sunday's game, but a hitless day ended an 11-game hitting streak. In the 11 games, he had nine multi-hit efforts and went 25-for-48 (.521) in the stretch. It was actually his second hit streak of 10+ games in 2007, as a 13-for-29 start after the first seven games of the year had him at a league-leading .448, and also gave him a 14-game hitting streak that was snapped March 10 at Austin Peay. He had ended the 2006 campaign on a seven-game streak and hit .410 in the stretch, recording 25 hits in 61 at-bats.

LET'S GO STREAKING
Junior Jesse Hart may own the two longest hitting streaks of the season for UWM, but there are others who are close, or getting there. Junior Grant Berkovitz had a 10-game streak earlier this year and currently boasts a seven-game streak. Seniors Kyle Silver and Ross McCoy both have had eight-game streaks to their credit, with Silver's a current one.

HERBERT SLAMS THE DOOR
Although sophomore Jordan Herbert did not get credit for an official save in UWM's victory on Saturday, he sure slammed the door on Wright State. He came in with nobody out and a runner on base in the ninth inning and proceeded to strike out the side on 12 pitches, including the final two Raiders on six straight strikes.

He has been close to unhittable in Horizon League action this season, posting a 1-0 record and 0.00 ERA in five appearances. In 6.1 innings, he has allowed just two hits in 20 at bats (.100) and struck out 11 batters.

UWM RALLY INNING
Milwaukee may have lost to Northwestern Tuesday, 10-7, but rallied with three runs in the ninth and had the tying run at the plate when the game ended. That continued a season-long trend for UWM in the final frame, as the team has outscored its opponents 13-3 in the ninth inning.

"WALK LIKE A HETE-BERG-I-AN"
Sophomore Andy Hetebrueg tied a UWM game record Tuesday by doing, well, literally nothing. He walked four times to equal the school mark last tied in 1997 by Mark Rumpel (4/16/97). Strange but true, he came into the game with just two walks in 74 previous at bats in 2007.

ONE FOR YOU; TWO FOR MCCOY
Senior Ross McCoy put his name in the UWM record books April 21, as his double in the seventh inning of game two against Cleveland State gave him 48 for his career, breaking the UWM school record of 47 held by Charlie Reschke (2002-05).

He is closing in on numerous career marks in the Milwaukee record book, as he has moved into third place in career games with 188 (record is 202), third in at bats with 651 (record is 692), into fourth in hits with 187 and will break into the top five soon, as he currently has 121 career RBIs (No. 5 is at 123).

CAN I TRY AND TOP THAT?
Senior Robert Michalkiewicz finished with two UWM records during the end of April. First, he extended his school-record scoreless-innings streak to 22.1 (the old standard was 17.0 set by Aaron Bushong in 2001). Also, April 20 was the 43rd start of his UWM career, breaking the school record of 42 he held with Bushong (2000-04) and Chad Sadowski (1997-2000). Additionally, he had a streak of five starts where he nearly gave up no free passes, a streak that spanned 35.0 innings and 143 batters faced. He will secure one final career mark in the UWM record book, as he currently has 266.2 innings pitched in his four years. The record is 271.0 set by Andy Neary (1997-2000).

CAREER-HIGHS ALL OVER THE PLACE
Two sophomores that have seen significant increases in playing time this season have already blown past many of their previous career-bests with the season entering the final month. Andy Hetebrueg has established new highs for at bats with 80 (was 49), hits with 22 (11), doubles with eight (3), total bases with 30 (14), will eclipse standards in batting average at .275 (hit .224 in 2006) and slugging percentage at .375 (.286) and is close to runs batted in with 11 (12). Josh Groves has set new personal-bests in at bats with 65 (31), runs with seven (3), hits with 20 (7), doubles with seven (1), RBIs with four (3), total bases with 27 (8) and also on pace in average and slugging percentage.

LET THE LEAGUE GAMES BEGIN!
Milwaukee is happy to get into the midst of conference play, as it has posted the best record in Horizon League games of any team since the 1995 season, UWM's first year in the Horizon League/MCC. Heading into 2007, the Panthers had gone 152-99 (.606) in league play, better than runner-up UIC, which had a 140-108 (.565) league record in that same span.

NO APRIL FOOL'S FOR THESE GUYS
Despite a 5-9 record for the team in 14 April games, the month has been very good to these players: junior Jesse Hart is hitting .439 (25-for-57) in 14 games, sophomore Josh Groves is batting .400 (14-for-35) in 11 games, and junior Nick Wichser is batting .302 (13-for-43) with a team-high 11 runs scored. On the mound, sophomore Jordan Herbert is 1-0 with a 0.00 ERA in four games and senior Robert Michalkiewicz is 3-1 with a 1.30 ERA in his four starts.

PUT THAT ON THE ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST
Just how rare is a 1-0 game in the NCAA Division I history of the Milwaukee baseball program? Research shows that the team had played 833 games overall since going DI in 1991 up until April 7 and the win over Butler was just the eighth game that resulted in a 1-0 decision (.0096%), going 4-4 in such contests. The last was in May of 2002, when UWM beat Detroit on a 10th-inning sacrifice fly.

The following is a list of those 1-0 results:
4/7/07: Win at home versus Butler
5/4/02: Win at home versus Detroit (10 innings)
4/10/99: Loss at Detroit
4/17/98: Win at Butler
4/1/97: Loss at Northwestern
4/15/95: Win at UIC
4/23/94: Loss at Wright State
5/3/92: Loss at NE Illinois

TOUGH EARLY SLATE
First it was then-No. 6 Arkansas and next came then-No. 21 Kentucky. Fact is that the two teams that UWM was swept by to start 2007 have a combined record of 65-25-1 (.731) at this point in the season. Arkansas is now 35-12, Kentucky 30-13-1 and both have been ranked in all polls for nearly the entire season, with Arkansas still in the Top 5 (No. 3 in Collegiate Baseball's poll) and Kentucky rising as high as No. 8 this year. To take that a step further, Austin Peay is 27-17 and Hawaii is 28-19, making the combined record of UWM's first four 2007 non-conference opponents an impressive 120-61-1, a .663 overall winning percentage.

PRESEASON POLL
The Panthers were picked third in the 2007 Horizon League preseason baseball poll as they will look to improve on their second place finish from a year ago and claim their third league regular season title since the 2000 campaign.

Illinois-Chicago was the top pick to win the league in the vote of Horizon League head coaches. The Flames went 35-20 and won the regular season title for the fifth-straight time in 2006. They received 24 points and four of the six first-place votes. Wright State was picked second after posting a 32-27 record and enjoying a four-game run through the league tournament, where they outscored opponents by a 52-5 count, en route to an NCAA Tournament appearance. The Raiders received the other two first place votes and 21 points. Milwaukee finished right behind in third with 16 points, while Butler (14 points), Youngstown State (10) and Cleveland State (5) rounded out the poll in fourth through sixth places.

1. UIC (4)          24 points
2. Wright State (2) 21 points
3. UW-Milwaukee     16 points
4. Butler           14 points
5. Youngstown State 10 points
6. Cleveland State   5 points

WHOSE TURN TO SHINE?
The Panthers counted heavily on 10 seniors last season, including five everyday starters, three starting pitchers and their closer. In all, the seniors accounted for over 1,000 plate appearances and over half of the innings (278.2 of 497.0) on the mound. Who will be the contributors in the 2007 season? Besides 15 returning letterwinners, UWM looks to 17 newcomers to step up this season.

ON TAP
Milwaukee stays home for two more games before heading to Ohio on the weekend. The Panthers will wrap-up this 12-game homestand with a doubleheader against Chicago State Tuesday. Then, they head to Youngstown, Ohio, for a weekend set with Youngstown State, with the first game set for Friday at 6 p.m.