Whitewater, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse baseball team rallied for five runs in the top of the ninth inning to earn a 9-8 victory at third-ranked UW-Whitewater Saturday afternoon at the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Championship game (presented by Culver's). With the win, UWL forces a second championship game versus UW-Whitewater scheduled for Saturday night.

UWL improves to 28-16 with the win while UW-Whitewater, ranked third on this week's D3baseball.com Top-25 Poll, drops to 34-7.

The Warhawks raced out to a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first Saturday on Steve Chamberlain's two-run home run.  UWL quickly tied the game in the top of the second as Brady Stolzman and Alex Brown scored on Nate Roethle's two-run single.

UW-Whitewater responded in the bottom of the inning with three runs to take a 5-2 lead. Nick Pescheck's RBI groundout in the top of the third scored Joel Zyhowski for UWL to cut the deficit to 5-3.  Blake Fleischman's two-run home run for the Warhawks in the bottom of the fourth made it 7-3, but Zyhowski scored on Carter Hoffman's triple in the top of the fifth cut the lead to 7-4. Mike Aiello's RBI single scored Matt Wary for UW-Whitewater in the bottom of the fifth. 

The score remained 8-4 until the top of the ninth. Alex Brown's solo home run with one out cut the lead to 8-4. Nate Roethle walked and advanced to second on a groundout.  Zyhowski followed with a single and Roethle scored on the play after a UW-Whitewater fielding error to make it 8-6.  Nate Heili then had an infield single with Zyhowski advancing to second.  Hoffman then delivered a two-out two-run double down the right field line to knock in Zyhowski and Heili to tie the game. Pescheck followed with a single to right center field to drive in Hoffman with the go-ahead run.

Chamberlain singled with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, but was caught stealing by Roethle to end the game.

James Witt (2-1) earned the win for UWL, pitching 4.2 innings in relief.  He allowed one hit and one walk while striking out two. Connor Cook started for the Eagles, going 4.1 innings, allowing 10 hits, eight runs and three walks with two strikeouts.

UWL finished with 14 hits as Heili and Hoffman each went 3-for-5. Hoffman finished with three RBI. Brown went 2-for-4 with two runs and an RBI while Roethle finished 2-for-3 with one run and two RBI.  Pescheck also had two RBI.

Mike Nompleggi (4-1) took the loss for UW-Whitewater, going 2.0 innings, allowing six hits, five runs and one walk with two strikeouts. Westin Wuethrich started for the Warhawks, pitching 7.0 innings, allowing eight hits, four runs and one walk while striking out nine.

UW-Whitewater totaled 11 hits as Chamberlain, Aiello, Brett Krause and Jeff Szubert each had two.