La Crosse, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse baseball team advanced to the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championship game (presented by Culvers) with a win over UW-Stevens Point Friday afternoon. . 

THE BASICS

• Result: UW-La Crosse 8, UW-Stevens Point 1
• Location: Prucha Field at Jim Miller Stadium, Whitewater, Wis. 
• Records: UW-La Crosse 31-12, UW-Stevens Point 26-17
• National Ranking: UW-La Crosse is ranked 16th on this weeks D3baseball.com Top-25 polls. 
• Up Next: The Eagles will now play top seed UW-Whitewater at 11:00 a.m.. UW-Whitewater is undefeated in the tournament so the Eagles would need to beat the Warhawks twice on Saturday to claim the WIAC Championship. UWL will be making its eighth appearance in the WIAC Championship game in the past 11 seasons including winning it in 2023. 

HOW IT HAPPENED

• Nate Witte led off the bottom of the first inning with a single and scored on a triple by Chris VandenHeuvel. Mac Born then hit a sacrifice fly to score VandenHeuvel and put UWL up 2-0. Then with two outs, Andrew Rajkovich and Jack Olver hit back-to-back singles to put runners on the corners. Rajkovich would then make it 3-0 as he scored on a wild pitch.
• With the score still 3-0 in the fifth inning, UWL scored two runs on three hits to extend their lead to 5-0. Jack Moran singled with one out and scored on a triple by Witte. VandenHeuvel then singled to score Witte and make it 5-0.
• UWL would add two more runs in the sixth inning to make it 7-0. Rajkovich singled to start the inning and went to second on a single by Olver. An Anthony Vivian infield single would load the bases followed by a sacrifice fly by Clavin Hargrove to make it 6-0. Moran then sacrificed bunted which scored Olver for the seventh run of the game.
• In the eighth inning, VandenHeuvel singled and scored on a double by Born for the Eagles final run of the game (8-0).
• UW-Stevens Point would score its only run of the game in the ninth inning as Connor Olson doubled, advanced to third on a ground and scored on a ground out by Jakob Boos. 

FROM THE BOX SCORE

• Offensively, UWL finished with eight runs on 13 hits and six walks.
• Five players finished with multiple hits including VandenHeuvel (3-for-4), Witte (2-for-5), Rajkovich (2-for-4), Olver (2-for-4) and Vivian (2-for-4). 
• VandenHeuvel added two RBIs and two runs scored while Witte had an RBI and two runs scored. 
• Owen DePrez (6-0) earned the win by going 6.2 and allowing just two hits while striking out 11. Tucker Bouche pitched the final 2.1 innings and giving up one run on one hit and two walks.
• Casey Pickering (5-3) suffered the loss for the Pointers as he allowed seven runs on 10 hits while striking out four.
• Connor Olson led the Pointers offense by going 2-for-4 with two doubles and a run scored.