The UW Oshkosh baseball team dropped three straight games to open the 2019 season in Birmingham, Alabama.

Last Saturday, the Titans took two losses at the hands of Adrian College and Birmingham-Southern College (Ala.).

Against Adrian College, the Titans got multi-hit games from seniors Zack Radde and Jensen Hinton, but were only able to plate two runners in the 15-2 loss.
Titan hitters struck out 10 times at the hands of Adrian College pitchers while Adrian hitters only struck out three times over the course of the game. UWO also had plenty of opportunities to put more runners across the plate as they left 10 runners on base.

Head coach Kevin Tomasiewicz said the team can work on getting runners home once they are on base.

“The first weekend is always tough,” Tomasiewicz said. “It is your first time outside and usually [we] are playing teams that have played multiple games before. I think we showed some promise offensively in the last two games. We had people on base and in scoring position and just could not get the big hit. We hopefully will improve on that this upcoming weekend.”

The second part of UWO’s Saturday games featured a matchup against Birmingham-Southern College. The Titans once again struggled on the mound as they gave up eight runs to the host Panthers. Birmingham took an early lead and never relinquished it as they went on to win 8-3.

UWO was also out-hit by the Panthers 14-9. Senior infielder Dylan Ott and sophomore infielder Griff Lukes had multi-hit games for the Titans.
Lukes said the team needs to get better at capitalizing on scoring opportunities when it gets runners on base.

“We as a team need to work on situational hitting,” Lukes said. “I can remember two times off the top of my head that we had the bases loaded with one out and each time came out with no runs. At that point, it’s about manufacturing runs whether it be a sacrifice fly or a ground-ball to the right side, we need to capitalize in situations like that if we’re going to be successful.”

In the first game of the weekend, senior Colan Treml pitched five innings of shutout baseball before allowing one run in the fifth and two runs in the sixth inning. The Titans were unable to get their offense rolling and ultimately fell to Birmingham-Southern College by a final score of 4-0.

Treml said even though the team lost all three games this weekend, they learned how to stick together.

“No matter what the score is, we win and lose as a family,” Treml said. “In all sports it’s easy to dish out individual blame and focus on what could have been. Sticking together is [important in] the makeup of championship teams and I think we showed that in our games this past weekend.”

Dylan Ott had the Titans’ only extra-base hit on the afternoon, as he recorded a triple in the first inning but was not able to cross the plate.
Treml described the team as being “a little rusty” after having their first time outside on the season.

“I think we could have played much better than we did, but there are still some positive takeaways from the three games,” Treml said. “I think being trapped, practicing in a gym for the past two months put us in a situation where we were a little rusty, and I think it was a good wakeup call for our team to get us ready for our games coming up.”

The team will hit the road again this weekend for a three-game series against Rhodes College (Tenn.).