Stevens Point, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse baseball team earned a 14-4 victory in seven innings over UW-Whitewater Thursday afternoon in the opening round of the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Tournament (presented by Culver's) at UW-Stevens Point's Zimmerman Field. The Eagles, ranked 15th on this week's D3baseball.com Top-25 Poll, improve to 29-9 on the year while UW-Whitewater falls to 28-12.

UWL faces UW-Oshkosh on Friday, May 12 in the winner's bracket at 1 p.m. while UW-Whitewater plays UW-Stevens Point in an elimination game at 10 a.m. UW-Oshkosh defeated UW-Stevens Point, 5-3, in the first game of the tournament. 

UW-Whitewater took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning on an Adam Cootway RBI single on Thursday. UWL would take the lead back in the bottom half of the first as it scored seven runs on four hits and three Warhawks' errors. Jack Moran reached on an error to lead off the inning and stolen second. After an Eagles' strikeout, Moran advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on a single by Mac Born to tie the game at 1-1. Anthony Vivian was hit-by-pitch to put runners on first and second. Ty Hamilton singled to score Born to give UWL a 2-0 lead while Vivian scored on Logan Pye's fielder's choice. Tim Urlaub doubled to score Pye followed by George Seaman walking and Chris VandenHeuvel being hit-by-pitch. Moran walked with the bases loaded to score Pye while Seaman and VandenHeuvel scored on Jack Olver's single to make it 7-1.

The Warhawks get a run back in the third inning on a Matt Scolan solo home run to make it 7-2. 

In the fourth, UWL's Born doubled to lead off the inning and came around to score on a Vivian single. Hamilton singled to move Vivian to second and both move up a base on a sacrifice bunt by Pye. After an groundout, Seaman singled to score Vivian and Hamilton to give the Eagles a 10-2 lead after four innings.

With two outs in the Warhawks' fifth inning, Cootway tripled and scored on Sam Paden's double. Matt Korman then singled to score Paden and cut the deficit to 10-4. An RBI single by Vivian scored Olver who had doubled to give UWL a 11-4 lead in the fifth inning.  VandenHeuvel singled and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Moran in the bottom of the seventh. Olver reached on an error allowing VandenHeuvel to score.  Born singled while Jordan Williams moved Olver and Born to second and third on a groundout. Hamilton reached on a throwing error which allowed Olver and Born to score and give the Eagles a 14-4 win. 

Isaiah Katz (6-0) picked up his third complete-game of the season, going 7.0 innings, allowing four runs (three earned) on nine hits and one walk while striking out four. 

Offensively, the Eagles finished with 14 hits including five different players with multiple hits. Vivian led the way going 3-for-3 with two RBI and two runs while Born finished 3-for-5 with three runs and an RBI. VandenHeuvel and Olver both finished with two hits and two runs while Hamilton had two hits, one run and an RBI. 

UW-Whitewater offensively finished with nine hits including two each from Scolan and Cootway. Max Huseboe (5-1) suffered the loss for the Warhawks, allowing seven runs (one earned) on three hits, one walk and two hit-by-pitch in 0.2 innings of work.