Afternoon State News Briefs: Ripon gets knocked out of NCAA baseball tourney

• baseball

baseball

Talk about it

Ripon College is the first Wisconsin team to be eliminated from the NCAA Division III baseball tournament. The Red Hawks lost their second game at the Bloomington, Illinois Regional in a 7-1 decision today against the host school, Illinois Wesleyan.

Nick Mehn tossed a seven-hitter for Wesleyan with five strikeouts. John Henrickson doubled home Ripon’s only run, as the Red Hawks ended their season at 21-and-20. This afternoon, Carthage is playing Thomas More at Bloomington, and the loser will be eliminated. At the Whitewater Regional, top-seeded UW-Stevens Point stayed alive with a 5-1 victory today over Hamline of Saint Paul. Cody Koback was the winning pitcher, giving up a run on 10 hits in seven-and-two-thirds innings. Koback also hit a solo homer and scored twice. The Pointers will play UW-Whitewater this evening. The Warhawks are 2-0 at the regional, while a loss would eliminate the 1-and-1 Pointers.

________________________________________________________________

The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers will open a home series against division-leading Burlington tonight in the Midwest League. The Rattlers swept a double-header from the Beloit Snappers yesterday, 6-1 and 4-3. Brewers’ reliever Zach Braddock will make his rehab appearance for Wisconsin, as he continues to recover from a sleep disorder. The Timber Rattlers zoomed up the standings during the Beloit series – and they’re now in second place in the West at 21-18, eight games behind first-place Burlington. Beloit returns home tonight to face Kane County. The Snappers are tied with three other teams for third, all eight-and-a-half games off the pace. Great Lakes goes into the weekend with a one-and-a-half game lead over Bowling Green in the Eastern Division. Great Lakes is at home tonight against South Bend. Quad Cities hosts Cedar Rapids. Peoria plays at home against Clinton. Bowling Green is at Lansing. West Michigan hosts Fort Wayne. And Lake County is at Dayton.

__________________________________________________________________

The Green Bay Gamblers can clinch their second straight U.S. Junior Hockey League title this weekend, by winning two straight road games at Dubuque. The best-of-five Clark Cup Finals are tied at one-game-apiece. Game-Three is tonight in Dubuque, with Game-Four tomorrow night. The expansion Dubuque Fighting Saints are 4-0 at home in the playoffs. But Green Bay won its final regular season contest at Dubuque 4-to-1 on March 25th. The Gamblers’ third line of forwards Alex Broadhurst, Sam Herr, and Nolan LaPorte have accounted for seven goals and 14 assists in the playoffs, with a rating of plus-23. Also, Green Bay has given up just 11 goals in nine post-season games. Goal-keeper Ryan McKay has started in all but one of those contests.

__________________________________________________________________

Cornell College of Mount Vernon, Iowa will return to the Midwest Conference starting in the fall of 2012. The announcement was made by Saint Norbert College president Thomas Kunkel, who chairs the league’s President’s Council. Cornell requested the move. It was a founding member of the Midwest Collegiate Athletic Conference in 1921 – and it joined Coe College in moving to the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1996. Cornell is a four-year liberal arts school that fields teams in 19 men’s-and-women’s sports. The Midwest Conference includes Wisconsin schools such as Beloit, Ripon, Lawrence, Carroll and Saint Norbert's.

Tags: wisconsin sports, sports, proam