SAN ANTONIO – The 19th-ranked Trinity University baseball team suffered a 14-3 defeat at the hands of #22 University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in Thursday night's series opener.
The Tigers (3-1) and the Warhawks (1-0) will play three more games over the next two days to complete the series. The two teams split a four-game series in 2022, which was the most recent meeting between the two schools.
UW-Whitewater jumped out in front with three runs in the second and led 7-1 midway through the game. Trinity notched a pair of runs in the fifth to close the gap to 7-3, but the Warhawks finished with seven more runs over the final three innings to put the game out of reach.
Trinity was limited to just five hits in the game, collected by five different players. The Tiger defense also committed four errors and five pitchers yielded 13 hits and eight walks.
Michael Boeke (San Antonio, Texas / Antonian) took the loss to fall to 0-1 this season, allowing three runs on three hits before being chased from the game in the second inning.
Tyler Sheppard (Austin, Texas / Anderson) was the only one of four Tiger relievers that had a clean outing, pitching 1.1 shutout innings without allowing a hit.
After Whitewater went up 4-0 after the top of the third,
Pierce Matthews (Carrollton, Texas / Hebron) drew a leadoff walk in the bottom of the inning and
Colt Harris (Katy, Texas / Houston Christian) doubled to put two runners in scoring position with no outs.
Maddox McDonald (San Antonio, Texas / Antonian) drove in Matthews two batters later to put Trinity on the board, but the Tigers squandered an early chance to get back in the game. UW-Whitewater made the home team pay with three more runs in the next half-inning to make it a six-run game.
Matthews doubled to lead off the fifth, then Harris and
Jack Peterson (Round Rock, Texas / Round Rock) both walked to load the bases with no outs. After a strikeout,
Jack Baker (Sugar Land, Texas / Ridge Point) and
Nicholas Lazzara (Carrollton, Texas / Jesuit College Prep) both knocked in runs to make it 7-3, but it still felt like Trinity missed a chance at a big inning.
The Warhawks hit their third home run of the game to lead off the eighth to make it an 8-3 game, which turned out to be more than enough. Trinity's only two runners over the final three innings reached via errors by UWW, and the visitors pounded out six more runs in the eighth and ninth to close out the scoring.
Up Next
Trinity and UW-Whitewater will play a doubleheader on Friday afternoon, with game one set for a 2:00 p.m. first pitch. The teams will close the series with a game on Saturday morning, beginning at 9:00 a.m.
