(UW WHITEWATER COMMUNICATIONS) – The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater baseball team fell in extra innings to Bethany Lutheran College in the Regional Final of the NCAA Tournament. The heartbreaker came to an end in the bottom of the 11th, with the Vikings hitting a walk-off sacrifice fly to score the winning run.
The Warhawks struck first in the game, scoring at the top of the first as the designated away team. Andy Thies (Tallahassee, Fla./Lawton Chiles) scored the first run of the game off a single from Jackson Spring (St. Charles, Ill./St. Charles North).
From there, it was the Vikings quieting the Warhawks’ offense, keeping UWW at just one run until the 8th inning. On the offensive end, Bethany Lutheran piled on some runs to take the lead. A 2-run homer in the third put a crooked number on the board. The Vikings added one run in the fifth, and a solo home run plus an RBI double in the 7th to build a 6-1 lead.
Entering the last two down by five, the Warhawks’ time was running out. Leyten Bowers (Mineral Point, Wis./Mineral Point) was able to spark some momentum with a solo home run over the right field scoreboard to get the first run on the board since the first inning.
The four-bagger from Bowers kick-started the Warhawks’ offense. Dominik McVay (Mineral Point, Wis./Mineral Point) got a hold of one for his own three-run homer with Wyatt Jensen (Luck, Wis./Luck) following up McVay’s at bat with another solo shot to tie the game up at 6-6.
Still in the top of the 8th, the Warhawks kept the inning going with a single from Danny Hopper (Palatine, Ill./Palatine). Hopper moved up 180 feet, getting second on a wild pitch & third from an errant throw down by the catcher. Hopper came in for the go-ahead run off a deep double by Aaron Holland (Wheaton, Ill./Wheaton North). With just one inning, the Warhawks had flipped the script & took a one-run lead heading into the bottom of the 8th.
Bethany Lutheran was able to tie up the game from a wild pitch in the 8th, but no scores in the ninth sent the game to extras. In the 10th, the Warhawks had just a single base runner, but couldn’t move him past second. The Vikings were able to get runners on second & third, but the UW-Whitewater defense escaped the frame to send it into the 11th.
UW-Whitewater was retired in order on the 11th as the side flipped back to the Vikings. A single, sacrifice bunt, and a single put runners on the corners with just one out. A fly ball to right field did the job for the Vikings, as they scored the winning run after 3-hours & 40-minutes of game time.
The Warhawks 2026 campaign came to a close with a 43-6 record, the second-highest winning percentage in Warhawk history. The 2026 season included a school-record 36-game win streak as well as a perfect 28-0 record in conference play, the first time a team has done so in WIAC history.
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