March 12, 2011

Box Score

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Senior Chad Pierce took a perfect game into the fifth inning and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee pitching staff combined to shut out Santa Clara University, 3-0, Saturday afternoon at Schott Stadium.

The Panthers (2-9) not only received quality pitching, but got great defense and timely hitting to knock off the Broncos (6-8) at the Jack Gifford Memorial Tournament.

"We put all three phases together today," UWM head coach Scott Doffek said. "We certainly didn't swing the bats as well as we would have liked to all around, but we came up with some big hits. Really, all of the credit goes to the pitching today. We had a guy step up - work ahead in the count and do a great job. Chad (Pierce) really gutted it out, Greg (Blohowiak) came in and took care of business and Kaleb (Engelke) did a great job as well."

Pierce (1-3) ended up working into the eighth inning, allowing just three hits. He walked no one and struck out three, retiring the first 14 batters of the game before Patrick Terry singled sharply to left with two outs in the fifth inning.

"I was just throwing the fastball, I don't know if I had some movement on it but they were just hitting the ball on the ground," Pierce said. "And, when you get ground balls, good things can happen. Our defense was spectacular. After the first game [this weekend], the pitching staff talked and we knew we had to step up. Jordan (Guth) gave us a good start yesterday and today, I knew I needed to step up and be a leader."

Junior Greg Blohowiak worked a scoreless inning and junior Kaleb Engelke came on to record the final two outs of the contest and give Milwaukee its first shutout since defeating Dayton, 6-0, on March 7 of last season.

The Panthers got on the board early in the second, forging ahead with a pair of runs. Junior Phil Striggow doubled in a run and sophomore Nick Lingvay also drove in a run with a single through the right side.

It stayed that way until the eighth when senior Doug Dekoning added an insurance tally with a single to left to make it 3-0.

The defense played well behind Pierce, getting big plays when needed. Sophomore Jonathan Capasso made a couple of nice catches in left field and freshman Sam Koenig came up with two impressive diving stops - none bigger than in the fifth inning when he took away a base hit and started a double play with runners on first and third that ended the Santa Clara inning.

"We have been talking about it and really made a point today, before hand, to really invest for three hours on every pitch," Doffek said. "We've been talking about it the whole time, but at some point, as an athlete, you get tired of struggling. And I think that was what you saw today. There were some critical situations in the game today where we made some plus-plays to get ourselves out of it. What's happened in games past was we found a way not to make that play and beat ourselves and today we did not do that."

Dekoning went 2-for-3 to extend his hitting streak to 13 games and push his average to .500 (22-for-44) on the season. Lingvay had two hits, as did junior Paul Hoenecke. Terry led the Broncos with two of the three hits off UWM pitching.

Milwaukee wraps up the weekend tournament with a 3 p.m. CST start against host San Jose State Sunday.