Box Score Menomonie, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse fell 5-1 to UW-Whitewater in the championship game of the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Tournament Sunday afternoon at UW-Stout's Alumni Field. UW-L ends its regular season at 25-13 overall while UW-Whitewater improves to 31-9 and earns the league's automatic berth to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III Championships.
The Eagles earned the second championship game with a 5-4 victory over the Warhawks earlier Sunday. The WIAC Tournament follows a double-elimination format. UW-Whitewater earned a 2-1 victory over UW-L in Friday's opening day of the conference tournament.
UW-L will await word if it receives an at-large berth to the national tournament. The national championship field will be announced Monday, May 5 at 9 a.m. Central Time. The selection show will be streamed live at
http://www.ncaa.com/.
In Sunday's second championship game, UW-Whitewater took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning with both runs coming after two outs. Samie Seamon's double scored Chelsey Schobert to make it 1-0 while Kelly McGrail's infield single knocked in Seamon for a 2-0 lead.
The Warhawks added a run in the bottom of the third as Paife Evangelista doubled with one out and scored on Laura Eichenold's single.
UW-Whitewater took a 5-0 lead in the bottom of the fifth on a Amy Ricci RBI double and Eichenold RBI groundout.
UW-L cut the lead to 5-1 in the top of the sixth inning with a two-out run.
Megan Nelson doubled with one out and came in to score on
Lindsey Sheehan's single.
Jessie Carignan (9-3) suffered the loss for UW-L, pitching 2.1 innings, allowing six hits, three runs and one walk with strikeouts. Nelson went 2-for-3 while UW-L was held to five hits.
Bekka Houda (15-4) earned the complete-game win for UW-Whitewater, going 7.0 innings, allowing five hits, one run and one walk with two strikeouts. Ramirez went 3-for-4 for the Warhawks while Morgan Krisch and Amy Ricci each had two hits.
