Hamilton powers Wright State past UW-Milwaukee, 17-13

Box Score

May 24, 2007

Wright State 17, UW-Milwaukee 13
Chicago, Ill. - Jeremy Hamilton homered twice and drove in six runs to lead second-seeded Wright State past third seed UW-Milwaukee 17-13 in the winner's bracket of the 2007 U.S. Army Horizon League Baseball Championship at Les Miller Field.

Wright State, which outscored four opponents 52-5 in four games to sweep its way to the League title last spring, erupted for ten runs in the first inning off UW-Milwaukee starter Brandon Duffy (3-3). RBI singles by Hamilton and Justin Parker leveled the score at 2-2, and Brian Shoup put the Raiders ahead with a sacrifice fly to right field. Casey McGrew, Sam Mote and John Kopilchack each plated a teammate, and Hamilton then sent a Duffy offering high over the center-field fence for a three-run shot, his seventh homer of the season.

The Panthers had reached WSU starter Kyle Kearcher for two runs in the top of the first on Rob Brockel's seventh home run of the season. The UWM outfielder cleared the left-center field fence and scored behind teammate Kyle Silver, who drove in another run with an infield ground-out in the top of the second.

Wright State (35-20) re-gained command in the bottom of the third, scoring four times to take a 14-3 advantage. Ross Oeder doubled with two outs and scored on Dan Biedenharn's single before Hamilton and Jeremy Parker belted back-to-back homers to left-center field. Hamilton became the 12th player in tournament history to homer twice in one game, while Parker's shot was his fifth of 2007.

Jesse Hart cracked a two-run homer for UWM (24-31) in the top of the fourth, but the Raiders answered with single tallies in each of the middle three innings. Silver singled home a run for the Panthers in the seventh and Wichser homered in a two-run eighth. UW-Milwaukee mounted one final comeback bid in the ninth when Hart doubled home a pair of runs and Wichser singled him across, but Jason Bennion came on to get a double-play grounder off the bat of Brockel and an infield out from Groves to quell the rally.

Hamilton also tied a tournament single-game record with six RBI, joining a group of eight players to have accomplished that feat in a League Championship contest. He was three-for-three with four runs scored, and reached base in all six plate appearances (including two walks and one hit-by-pitch). Oeder went four-for-five with three runs scored, and Biedenharn also scored three runs for the Raiders. Kearcher logged his League-high tenth game in 14 decisions despite allowing seven runs on 13 hits in six innings.

Brockel had three hits and three RBI for the Panthers, with Silver adding four hits in six at-bats, scoring three runs and driving in a pair. Hart also had three of the Panthers' 21 hits.

Wright State moves into the winner's-bracket final, where the Raiders will meet the winner of Thursday's third game between fourth-seeded Cleveland State and top seed UIC for a berth in the championship game. That contest is scheduled for Friday at 7 p.m. (Central time), following a pair of elimination showdowns at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.