How do you follow up the biggest win in nearly three decades? You try not to blow it the next day. That is the task facing the UW-Milwaukee baseball team. Just hours after pulling off a stunning 13-8 upset over top-seeded Auburn, the Panthers have to get back to work. No time to celebrate.
They face Central Florida tonight at Plainsman Park in Auburn, Alabama. It is a 7 p.m. CT start, broadcast on ESPN+. Both teams are currently sitting pretty in the winners’ bracket of this double-elimination regional. Milwaukee enters with a sub-.500 record of 26-31, but they have rattled off eight straight wins when it mattered most.
Before yesterday, UWM hadn’t won an NCAA tournament game in 27 years. They barely got here in the first place, punching their ticket with a dramatic walk-off home run by West Bend East alum Joey Spence to secure the Horizon League crown. Now, they are the talk of the state. Even Brewers manager Pat Murphy took notice of the shockwave.
Head coach Shaun Wegner is trying to ride the wave. He told ESPN Madison he wants his squad to be known as “Wisconsin’s baseball team.” It is a bold pitch for a program that usually plays in the shadows. We will see if the magic holds, or if reality finally catches up to them tonight.
