Box Score Whitewater, Wis. - The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Baseball team suffered a loss to UW-Oshkosh in the opening round of the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) Tournament (presented by Culvers) Thursday afternoon. Eagles will face UW-Whitewater in an elimination game on Friday. 

THE BASICS

• Result: UW-Oshkosh 15, UW-La Crosse 4 (8 innings)
• Location: Prucha Field at Jim Miller Stadium, Whitewater, Wis. 
• Records: UW-La Crosse 33-8, UW-Oshkosh 30-11
• National Ranking: UW-La Crosse is ranked eighth on this weeks D3baseball.com Top-25 polls. 
• Up Next: UW-La Crosse will play UW-Whitewater in an elimination game on Friday at 10:00 a.m. UW-Whitewater lost to UW-Platteville in the other first round game 6-3. UW-Whitewater won the regular season series 3-1 over UW-La Crosse. 

HOW IT HAPPENED

• Chris VandenHeuvel led off the bottom of the first inning with a single to left field and advanced to second on Nate Witte's ground out. George Seaman would move VandenHeuvel to third on his fly out while Mac Born's double gave the Eagles an early 1-0 lead.
• UW-Oshkosh would get the run back in the top of the second inning as they loaded the bases with two outs. Brenden Max singled and moved to third on Mason Kirchberg's double. After Logan Schill was hit by a pitch to load the bases, Nick Shiu was hit by a pitch which forced in Max to tie the game at one. 
• The score would remain 1-1 until the bottom of the sixth inning when the Eagles scored three unearned runs. With one out, Born reached on a fielding error in right field and advancing to second on the play. Then with two outs, Jack Olver singled to left field which scored Born from second. Andrew Rajkovich's single would score Olver from second to put UWL up 3-1. After Rajkovich stole second base, Calvin Hargrove singled to right field which gave UWL a 4-1 lead as Rajkovich came home to score. 
• The Titans would get all of those runs back plus more in the top of the seventh.  Shiu led off the seventh with a single and advanced to second on Jake Surane's single. Zach Taylor would tie the game up for the Titans as he hit a three-run home run to left center. With one out, Owen Housinger and Max hit back-to-back singles and moved to second and third when Kirchberg walked. Jack McNamara singled to score Housinger and give the Titans a 5-4 lead. 
• UW-Oshkosh would pull away in the top of the eighth inning as they scored 10 runs on eight hits and two errors. Housinger (2-run double), Schill (3-run triple) and Max (two singles, 3 RBIs) provided the big hits for the Titans. 
• After Born walked to lead off the eighth, the Eagles were retired in order to end the game. 

FROM THE BOX SCORE

• Offensively, UWL finished with four runs on nine hits and one walk.
• Born led the Eagles offense as he finished 2-for-3 with a walk, an RBI and a run scored while VandenHeuvel was 2-for-4 with a run scored. 
• Caleb Matel (2-1) came on in relief to suffer the loss as he allowed three runs on four hits and two walks in 1.0 innings. Chayce Osterhaus made the start for the Eagles going 6.0 innings and allowing four runs on 10 hits and one walk while striking out seven. 
• The Titans finished with 15 runs on 21 hits and five walks. 
• Connor Brinkman (6-2) earned the win on the mound for the TItans as he allowed four runs on nine hits and a walk while striking out five in 6.0 innings. 
• Taylor (4-for-6, HR, four RBIs and three runs scored) and Max (5-for-6 with three RBIs and 2 runs scored) led the Titans offense.