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Milwaukee Baseball At Home For Four Games This Week

Panthers welcome Valparaiso for weekend series

April 28, 2008

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee baseball team will finally get to play at home again, as it will host games at Henry Aaron Field on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday of this week. The Panthers also have a midweek game scheduled at Northwestern to close out the month. Milwaukee will host Northern Illinois in a non-conference match-up Tuesday at 3 p.m. before making the trip to Evanston, Ill., Wednesday for a 3 p.m. contest against the Wildcats. UWM then welcomes Valparaiso for a three-game league series on the weekend, opening Friday at 2 p.m. before playing a doubleheader starting at noon Saturday.

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Milwaukee leads the all-times series with NIU by a 17-16 count after falling in extra innings, 3-2, back on April 2. The teams split a doubleheader in 2007 as the Panthers lost a 10-9 decision and also posted an 11-1 victory a year ago.

The Panthers head south to play Northwestern Wednesday, a series that NU leads 12-4 after claiming a 10-7 victory last year.

Milwaukee will play Valparaiso for the first time as a member of the Horizon League this weekend after building a 12-4 series edge in non-conference games over the years. The last time these two teams squared off on the baseball diamond was during the 2005 campaign, a game that UWM won, 12-4, at Miller Park.

The 2008 campaign marks the 44th season of baseball at UWM. It is also the 39th season of varsity play (the program was played at the club level from 1982-1986) and the 18th in the Panthers NCAA Division I era.

SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
Northern Illinois enters the week at 19-21 overall after taking two out of three against Eastern Michigan in a weekend conference series. The Huskies are 9-7 in the 16 games they have played since UWM and NIU battled through 10 innings April 2. Jeff Thomas leads five regulars batting over .300 with a .342 average while also scoring 29 times and knocking in 29. Bobby Stevens has started all 40 games and is batting .323, while Justin Behm is hitting at a .321 clip and leading the team in home runs (8) and runs batted in (33).

On the mound, Dan Atkenson has gone 3-0 with a 1.85 ERA in 23 relief appearances, striking out 38 in 39.0 innings. Adam Holdenrid leads the starters with a 4-3 mark and 4.07 ERA. Andy Deain has four saves.

Northwestern will be the second Big Ten opponent UWM will play this season after defeating Iowa last week. The Wildcats are 16-19 after splitting a four-game weekend series with Ohio State, and have now won five of their past seven games. The team is batting .316, with two players hovering near the .400 mark on the season. Mike Kalina leads the way at .398 and has driven in 21 and scored 26 times. Jake Goebbert is right behind at .395 and leads the team with seven home runs and 38 batted in.

The staff ERA stands at 6.40 and, much like the Panthers, have just two pitchers with ERA's under five that have appeared in more than 10 innings. Closer Matt Havey is 2-1 with a 1.67 ERA, having saved four games and worked 37.2 innings. Eric Jokish leads the starters with a 5-2 record and 4.70 ERA.

Valparaiso enters the week at 13-25 overall and 5-8 in the Horizon League. They will have a busy week as well, playing at Bradley (DH) Tuesday and hosting IPFW Wednesday before heading to Wisconsin. The Crusaders won three of five games last week and took two out of three against Butler on the weekend. Included in that series was a phenomenal comeback win where Valpo won 16-15 in 10 innings despite trailing 13-0 at one point and 15-8 heading into the ninth inning.

Zach Rodeghero leads the team and Horizon League with a .449 average, a number that ranked in the top 20 in the NCAA last week. He has scored 34 runs, knocked out four home runs and driven in 37, all team-leading numbers. On the mound, the team carries a 6.92 earned run average.

BIG OFFENSIVE NUMBERS YIELD .500 WEEK
Milwaukee went on the offensive last week, pounding out 63 hits in four games to raise the team batting average back over .300 (now .301) for the first time since the season opener. However, the results yielded a 2-2 week, beating Iowa Tuesday before dropping two of three to league-leader Wright State on the weekend.

The team batted .375, led by five players over .400 for the week. Freshman Doug Dekoning was the top hitter in the stretch, going 6-for-8 in three games. Sophomore Shaun Wegner was next, batting .556 (10-for-18) with a home run and four runs batted in. Junior Shawn Wozniak also did plenty of damage, recording eight hits in 17 at bats (.471) while scoring five times, hitting four doubles and driving in seven.

HIT PARADE
The Panthers combined for 40 hits in back-to-back games last week, accounting for 18 against Iowa April 22 and then 22 more in the opener against Wright State April 25. That marks the most hits that the UWM offense has had in consecutive games since collecting 41 in April of the 2006 season. That year, the Panthers tied the school record with 29 safeties against Chicago State April 12 and then added 12 more against Youngstown State April 15 for a two-game total of 41.

DOUBLE ME UP
Hitting doubles has been a hallmark of the UWM offense, as the team has broken the season record in two-baggers five times in the past eight seasons. This year is no different, as they currently lead the Horizon League with 102 doubles and are on pace to break the record once again. As of last week's NCAA statistical release, Milwaukee ranked 17th as a team in doubles per game and 41st in overall doubles. Senior Jesse Hart ranked 11th in the NCAA in total doubles and seventh in the NCAA in doubles per game. In addition to that, UWM has the top three accumulators of doubles in the Horizon League: Hart is first with 20 and senior Nick Wichser and junior Shawn Wozniak are tied for second at 16. Only Michael Rockett of the University of Texas at San Antonio (21) has more doubles at the NCAA Division I level than Hart and his 20.

HART CLIMBING THE LADDER
Senior Jesse Hart has been busy at the plate lately, raising his batting average 113 points in the past 22 games while entering play this weekend on a 16-game hitting streak. He was batting .214 March 23 and is now at .327 after going 39-for-95 in the past 22 games, scoring 28 times and driving in 25 runs while also collecting 15 doubles and three home runs. Also, with his 20 doubles on the season, he now has double-figure totals in each of the past three years in that category and is on pace to break the UWM season (23) mark. With two more two-baggers last week, he has pulled into a tie at the top of the career chart with former Panther Ross McCoy, both with 58.

THE BEAT GOES ON NO MORE...
Senior Nick Wichser saw his hitting streak end at 24 games in the first contest of a doubleheader at Cleveland State April 19. The streak will go down as the third-longest in program history, trailing only 32 and 27-game hitting streaks by Mike Goetz in 2006. Wichser ended the stretch with 16 multi-hit efforts in those 24 games, going 44 for 92 (.478) while scoring 28 runs and driving in 25 more.

HART IN THE 200 CLUB; WICHSER UP NEXT
Senior Jesse Hart joined a select group with his base hit against NIU April 2: players to collect 200 or more hits in a Panther career. Hart sat at 199 in his illustrious career heading into the game at Northern Illinois before lacing a double in his first at-bat. Only Darin Haugom (245), Ross McCoy (220) and Charlie Reschke (213) have more. Senior Nick Wichser is now on pace to join that select group as well, as he has upped his career total to 182 entering play this week.

FRESHMEN LEARNING CURVE
Freshman Doug Dekoning opened the season as one of the starting outfielders for the Panthers and has gone on to appear in 31 games, making 25 starts. After a slow start which saw him batting .173 at the end of March, the Dick Falk Award winner (high school player of the year in the state of Wisconsin) has raised his batting average to its current .297 and enters play this week on a nine-game hitting streak in which he has gone 15-for-27 (.556) with four doubles. He tied his season-high with three hits Saturday against Wright State.

HURTS SO GOOD
For a pair of Panther players, getting on base by any means can be a little painful at times. Sophomore Shaun Wegner and junior Andy Gerhartz lead the team in getting hit by a pitch this season, with both ranking in the top five in the league heading into play this week. Wegner has been plunked 13 times (league lead is 14) and Gerhartz is now at 11. For the record, the UWM season mark is 26 by Clay Schwartz in 1997.

FOR OPENERS
The Panthers now carry a 15-3 all-time record in home openers at the NCAA Division-I level after beating Bradley, 4-3, April 15. They had won 12-straight before falling to Butler, 5-2, in the home opener a year ago. The last defeat in a home opener prior to that was a 3-0 loss to Eastern Illinois in 1994. Furthermore, the Panthers are averaging nearly 10 runs a game in the past 13 openers, while allowing just four runs on average.

HAIR-PULLING RESULTS
The three-straight one-run losses at UIC March 22-23 (9-8, 2-1 and 5-4) had been nearly unprecedented in the history of the Milwaukee baseball program since it went Divison I for the 1991 season. Only one other time in history had the team lost three-consecutive games by one run each and it happened in that inaugural D-I 1991 campaign when it dropped a 6-5 decision to DeKalb March 26 before falling 3-2 and 2-1 to Southern Tech March 27 of that spring. To put that in perspective, that stretch of tough-luck decisions came over 875 games ago.

It took all of four games for UWM to have to go through a similar stretch, as it fell to Northern Illinois April 2, 3-2, before dropping 10-9 and 5-4 decisions at Southern Illinois on the weekend. Even more frustrating this time was that the losses all came in the final at-bat of the game each time. That has been the theme for UWM this year, as it dropped its first nine one-run games this season, but then regrouped to record victories in five-consecutive such decisions before losing 10-9 to Youngstown State April 20.

OUR TURN
Senior Troy Vesling and sophomore Shaun Wegner have made the most of additional playing time this season, as each has already set career-highs in numerous categories. Vesling has established career marks in at bats with 138 (was 99), runs with 18 (14), hits with 37 (25) and has already gone past his RBI-total from last season (18) sitting at 24 after play over the weekend. He is also hitting .268 this year after a .253 campaign a year ago. After batting .277 as a freshman, Wegner is currently at .384 and is blowing by last season's totals of 18 runs (he currently has 23), 26 hits (has 33), and 13 RBI (has 17). He is batting a red-hot .450 (18-for-40) in his last 11 outings. In addition, he has picked three runners off base and thrown out 15 would-be base stealers.

LET THE LEAGUE GAMES BEGIN!
Milwaukee is happy to see the start of conference play, as it has posted the best record in Horizon League games of any team since 1995, UWM's first year in the Horizon League/MCC. In that time, the Panthers have gone 168-113 (.597), while posting a 6-7 record in league openers.

HART ON SEASON-LONG MISSION
Senior Jesse Hart will look to put his name in the UWM record books in numerous spots over the course of his final season. In addition to chasing career records in several categories, he will also look to become the first-ever Panther to bat over .300 in each of his four seasons in a Milwaukee uniform. Charlie Reschke (2002-05) was the last senior in line to give it a shot, but batted .287 his final season.

Hart, a career .342 hitter, batted an impressive .371 in 35 games as a freshman in 2005, .315 in 55 games as a sophomore and .360 as a junior a year ago.

		CAREER RECORDS CHASE
AT-BATS				HITS
1. 737, Ross McCoy (2004-07)		1. 245, Darin Haugom (1997-2001)
2. 692, Darin Haugom (1997-2001)	2. 232, Jesse Hart
3. 686, Jesse Hart			3. 220, Ross McCoy (2004-07)
4. 683, Charlie Reschke (2002-05)	4. 213, Charlie Reschke (2002-05)
5. 610, Chad Sadowski (1997-2000)	5. 197, Chad Sadowski (1997-2000)

READY FOR BUS RIDES AND MOTEL STOPS...
The Panthers were busier than ever while waiting for the snow to melt and Henry Aaron Field to be ready for them to play in Milwaukee. While that happened, they played 30-straight road games to open 2008, the most-ever to start a season in their NCAA Division I history. The previous record of 26 occurred in 2001.

The Panthers traveled more than 12,500 miles over the course of the first seven weeks of the season via plane or bus, visiting six different states (Florida, California, Louisiana, Tennessee, Illinois and Indiana), including two trips to Indiana and four separate road trips to Illinois.

PRESEASON SHOWINGS
Milwaukee was picked to take second in the Horizon League season preview put out by www.rivals.com, one spot ahead of UIC and behind league favorite Wright State. Three players made its Preseason All-Conference Team: seniors Jesse Hart (at 2B) and Nick Wichser (OF) and junior Josh Groves (3B). UWM was the only team to have three players on the list.

The preseason issue of Baseball America featured its 2008 College Preview as well. The Panthers were slotted for third in its version, behind UIC and, once again, WSU as the top pick. Hart and Groves appeared on the Preseason All-Conference Team.

GROVES GETTING `PUB'
Junior Josh Groves became the first Panther to ever be named to the College Baseball Foundation Brooks Wallace Award Watch List in December. The Wallace Award is presented annually to the nation's top collegiate baseball player.

Groves had a breakout season as a sophomore in 2007, leading the team with a .396 average while earning All-Horizon League First Team honors as a utility player to earn a spot on the list, which had its inception prior to the 2004 campaign.

Groves is one of just four players from the Horizon League to make the list, joining John Koehnlein of Youngstown State and the Wright State duo of Justin Parker and Jeremy Hamilton.

DOFFEK IN THE MIX
Milwaukee head coach Scott Doffek established a baseball program record last year for wins by a first-year coach with 25 victories, breaking the former mark of 21. The mark for most wins by a head coach in his first two seasons? That would be 44 by former skipper Jerry Augustine, with 21 in 1995 and 23 in 1996.

BIG SHOES TO FILL
The Panthers will look to replace four team members (three position players and one pitcher) that all earned Second Team All-Horizon League honors a year ago. The trio of position players (Ross McCoy, Rob Brockel, Grant Berkovitz) accounted for 618 at-bats and a composite .306 batting average, 110 runs scored and 102 runs batted in. The pitcher (Robert Michalkiewicz) led the squad in earned run average, wins, games started, innings pitched, shutouts and complete games and was second in strikeouts.

PROFESSIONAL PANTHERS
Another summer of baseball meant another summer of former Panthers playing professionally across the United States. Mike Goetz batted .318 for the Helena Brewers, the Rookie League affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. He scored 28 runs in 46 games, recording 27 runs batted in and stealing 11 bases before getting called up to the Huntsville Stars at the end of the season. Ross McCoy signed as a free agent with the Utica Brewmasters in the New York State League in June. After the short state league season was over, he was promoted to the Lincoln Saltdogs of the American Association on July 21 where he batted .302 in 29 games, scoring 11 times, recording seven doubles, one home run and drove in 12 runs. Joe Nowicki started the season with Frederick Keys of the Carolina League, going 2-for-3 in one game before being transferred to the Aberdeen Ironbirds for the remainder of the season. There he batted .283 on the season, hitting .330 in July. Nowicki hit eight home runs and drove in 41 in 69 games en route to being named to the New York-Penn League All-Star Game. Ben Stanczyk was a Florida State League All-Star with the Brevard County Manatees, recording a 7-4 record with three saves in 43 games. He started four times, striking out 71 batters in 78.2 innings.

PRESEASON POLL
The Panthers were picked third in the 2008 Horizon League preseason baseball poll. They will look to improve on their third place finish from a year ago, when they had their season come to a close in extra innings just one game away from the league tournament championship.

Wright State was the top pick to win the league in the vote of Horizon League head coaches. The Raiders went 36-22 last year, falling in the league tournament championship to UIC. They received 34 points and four of the seven first-place votes. UIC took a close second despite having won its sixth-straight regular season title in 2007 and third tournament crown in that span as well, advancing to the NCAA Tournament.

1. Wright State (4) - 34 points
2. UIC (3) - 32 points
3. Milwaukee - 25 points
4. Butler - 17 points
5. Youngstown State - 14 points
6. Cleveland State - 13 points
7. Valparaiso - 12 points

ON TAP
UWM remains at home with its busiest week of the season, playing seven games in five days. First is a twinbill at the Hank against Chicago State Tuesday, then off to UNI Wednesday before playing at home Friday and Saturday.