Speedy centerfielder Brad Wannemuehler will become the fifth ballplayer to move on to play baseball in college out of the 2009 and 2010 Mater Dei classes.  Brad had offers at Division I MVC programs from the University of Evansville and Indiana State, but ultimately, he liked the opportunity presented to him with the Division II University of Southern Indiana program better.  The Eagles have been perrenial challengers in one of the toughest DII conferences in the country, the Great Lakes Valley Conference, and they have been nationally ranked the past few since Tracey Archuleta took the reigns.  Go to the link above to learn more about USI baseball. 

Providence came into Saturday's action coming off a pretty impressive Sectional Championship run.  But it was pretty apparent by about the 3rd inning that there were too many Weinzapfels for our friends from Clarksville today as Brent Weinzapfel launched two HR's into a pretty stiff breeze in right center, scored twice, and drove in 5 runs, while Jake Weinzapfel added two more hits, scored two more runs, stole a base, as Mater Dei's offense seemed to pick up where it left off in last Monday's 9 run 7th inning.   When the carnage was over, the Cats scorched some pretty decent Providence pitchers for 11 runs on 11 hits and no Clarksville errors in the mercy rule, six inning affair.

Meanwhile, Jerad Eickhoff was keeping the bats warm with quick work on the mound .  The lanky 6'5" righthander seemed to overpower Providence as they just couldn't seem to do much with the downward plane and run on Eickhoff's offerings, even when they were ahead in the count.  He would surrender a single, harmless run after the outcome had long been decided in the last inning on 4 hits,  while striking out 7, and walking 4, running his record in the process to 7-1 on the season.

In the nightcap Regional Championship:

The only way to really describe this one is that is was workmanlike.  After scratching tallies each of the first three innings and leading 4-0 heading into the home half of the 4th, you really had the feeling the dam was about to burst on South Putnam's big righthander Noah Boswell.  But, he had managed to keep the game close through the first three frames.   Hunter Owen led off the 4th with a harmless grounder to 3B for the first out, but by the time the second out of the inning was recorded, Boswell had been knocked out of the box and the Mater Dei led 12-0.  In between those two outs, 3 hits, 2 walks, a hit batsmen, and 3 SP miscues determined the outcome of this one.  Brad Wannemuehler and Caleb Eickhoff would prove out to be the big guns in this one, both collecting two hits.

It would be all Joe Major would need as he cruised through 5 pretty uneventful innings of work on the bump.  He would go to 5-1 on the spring with the win, and strike out five while giving South Putnam just two safeties on the night.

After falling behind 2-1 on a routine fly ball that nobody could find in short right field in the bottom of the sixth inning, it seemed like this team might really be snake-bit for good this spring.  But 9 runs on 9 hits later, these Cats looked more like snake-charmers, and once again for the third straight year, Mater Dei's baseball team is a sectional champion.

Hank LaRue led off the top of the 7th with a crisp liner into left-center right over the shortstop and then Jake Weinzapfel doubled over the centerfielder's head bring Brent Weinzapfel to the plate with runner on second and third with nobody out.  Ranger Head Coach Jarred Howard trotted to the mound presumably to instruct his hurler, Logan Mohr, to unintentionally walk the Big Cat, load the bases and set up a force play at every base.  But apparently not because Mohr proceeded to pitch to Weinzapfel, who lined a 1-2 fastball down the rightfield line for what appeared to be the g0-ahead runs.  Not so fast- Jake Weinzapfel's cleats failed him around third base causing him to slip and not score the go-ahead run.  With the score now knotted at 2, Corey Lipking worked Mohr for a free pass, only his 3rd of the game and when Brad Wannemuehler lifed a pop up to short left field, it looked like MD would have 1st and 3rd with one out.  But to everyone's surprise, Jake Weinzapfel took off for home after the catch and easily scored the go-ahead run standing up giving Wanni the Game Winning RBI with the unexpected SAC fly.  The rest of the Cats would pile it on from there with Seth LaRue, Jerad Eickhoff, Hank LaRue(again), Jake Weinzapfel(again), Brent Weinzapfel(again), and Corey Lipking would all produce solid line drive hits in the inning. 

By the time Joe Major went back to the mound to finish things off in the bottom of the 7th, the bad luck of the 6th inning fly ball that fell unseen was a very very distant memory.  He made sure the Rangers would not answer, yielding a harmless unearned run in the bottom of the 7th sealing the win and the championship.

 They will move on to Saturday's Regional, in Austin, and will play the winner of the Brownstown Central-Charlestown Sectional Championship game, at 1:00 pm (EDT).