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| Brett Benesh circles the bases after his homer |
Posted April 1, 2009
By Paul Erickson, Sports Information Director
Hitting a home run was the last thing on Brett Benesh's mind when he stepped up to the plate in the eighth inning of a 2-2 tie, but the UW-Platteville shortstop drilled a home run over the fence in right-center, propelling the Pioneers to a 3-2 victory over UW-La Crosse in the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference opener Wednesday at Kendall Murray Field. The Eagles won the second game 7-2.
"I was just hoping to make contact mainly because my last two at-bats were strikeouts," said Benesh, a sophomore from Madison Edgewood said. "I felt like I just want to put the bat on the ball and get something going. I didn't expect that."
His home run helped deliver a victory for ace Joe Lange, who struck out eight in eight innings. Aaron Daniels worked a hitless ninth for his second save of the season and eighth of his career.
Jason Jacobson gave the Pioneers a 2-1 lead in the second, hitting a two-run double after three Pioneers walked. The score stayed that way until the fifth, when UW-L's Joey Casper tied things with a sacrifice fly.
The tie continued for two more innings until Benesh's blast.
"I thought it was going to be a double or something but I got it up in the wind," he said, adding he was "pretty excited. I was trying to keep it in though because the game wasn't over yet."
Daniels walked one in the ninth, but induced two lineouts and struck out the final batter for the save. Lange kept the Eagles off-balance all game, with 12 ground-ball outs and just two flyouts. Benesh had five infield assists.
"He's probably the best pitcher who gets ground balls," Benesh said. "And he always gives us nice slow ones. They don't hit a lot of hard balls off him. Joe is never really content with the way he pitches, but he pitched really well. Same thing with Aaron. They picked us up when we weren't hitting the ball real well."
In the nightcap, the Eagles' Russ Benitz retired the first 12 batters and allowed just two infield singles in the fifth during his six innings. Cory Poppitz and Lance Poppy had back-to-back RBI doubles in the second, giving the Eagles the lead for good.
The Pioneers trailed 6-0 into the eighth until Steve Bomkamp and Lee Hawkins had RBI singles. Five Pioneer pitchers held the Eagles to six hits, but the two-run second and three-run sixth were enough to give UW-L the split.
The Pioneers are now 6-6 overall, and the Eagles are 8-4.
"It was nice to get one, but we know we can do better than that," Benesh said.
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