Great experience for Mudgett with UW-W club

NATIONAL RUNNER-UP

While UW-Whitewater has one of the nation’s most prominent athletic programs at the NCAA Division III level, its club baseball team made a remarkable under-the-radar run by coming up one win short of the Division I championship at the National Club Baseball Association World Series.

Medford’s Seth Mudgett was along for the ride as an outfielder on the club that finished a 20-7 year with a 6-3 loss to Penn State in the national championship game, played June 1 at Lloyd Hopkins Field in Alton, Ill. at the conclusion of the NCBA’s week-long, double-elimination World Series.

The club Warhawks won their five-team Great Lakes West Conference over the likes of Wisconsin, Northwestern, Marquette and Milwaukee, sending them to the NCBA Great Lakes Regional Tournament in Fort Wayne, Ind. May 12-14. There, as the third seed out of four teams, they knocked off Notre Dame twice as well as third-ranked Michigan to advance to the eight-team World Series in Alton.

There, as the eighth seed playing against teams from well-known colleges from around the country, the Warhawks started by knocking off top-seeded Utah State and were one of the last two survivors before falling to the Nittany Lions in the final.

“It was awesome playing teams like that. It was special,” said Mudgett, who graduated from Medford Area Senior High last May. “I don’t think any other team had the chemistry we did. The friendships that we made along the way were special. You have to credit our winning for some of that too. That was a big part of our success because everybody was there to pick each other up whenever anything bad happened, everybody was always there for each other. No matter what, if someone was not playing in that game, they were always up on their feet cheering. That’s why it was the most fun I’ve ever had playing baseball.”

Whitewater’s club baseball team is entirely run by the students. They were led this year by president Isaac Morley, a senior from Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau. Mudgett made the team through a tryout process not long after arriving on campus last fall. The Warhawks started playing games in the fall and then resumed their season in spring. Club sports give college students the opportunity to compete at a relatively high level with conference and post-season play being a part of many club sports. “I was planning on playing club baseball just because I didn’t really want the commitment of the actual team and I wasn’t sure if I was quite ready to play on the actual team,” Mudgett said. “So I decided to play on the club and honestly it was one of the best decisions I think I’ve ever made.

Mudgett hit .353 with 12 hits in 34 atbats while spending most of his defensive time in leftfield or rightfield. He drove in eight runs, drew five walks and stole a base. He was three for three with a double, two runs driven in and two runs scored in a 12-3 win at UW-Eau Claire in late October, two for five with two RBIs in a 12-2 season-opening win over Milwaukee, two for four with a walk and two runs scored in a 15-5 win over Marquette in April and two for four with an RBI and a run scored in a 3-2 loss to Drexel.

Making UW-W’s run even more improbable was the fact the team was coming off a 3-16 season in 2022.

In most cases, the team played threegame series throughout the year and Mudgett said he typically saw action in two of the three games.

“There was a lot of good talent,” he said. “We were playing against guys who were on actual teams or couldn’t quite make it on to them that had to go down to club. It was really good competition. We had a few series in the fall, a couple of tournaments here and there, just getting ready for the spring. We went on our Florida trip and that’s when everything really took off from there. We really picked it up. We added our team chemistry. Spending a week with the same guys you’re going to have to get along. We all just became extremely good friends after that trip.”

In the conference, Northwestern finished 8-4, Marquette was 4-8 and Milwaukee was 0-12. The title came down to the final series with Wisconsin in late April. The teams split two games with Whitewater winning 7-2 and the Badgers taking a 2-1 win. A 10-0 win for the Warhawks gave them the season series and the tiebreaker for the regional berth as both teams finished league play at 9-3.

“Beating Madison to win conference outright was awesome,” Mudgett said. “They were back and forth games the first night we played and then the second night we just came ready to play and we buried them.”

The regional tournament consisted of the Warhawks, Great Lakes North champion and top seed Michigan, Great Lakes South champion and two-seed Notre Dame and the at-large fourth seed, Illinois State. Whitewater shut out Notre Dame 5-0 and then knocked off Michigan 4-1 to earn a spot in the championship round. By then, Illinois State and Michigan were out and the Warhawks needed to beat Notre Dame once to advance to the World Series. They did with a 7-3 win.

“They were all very good games, very close,” Mudgett said. “It came right down to the wire each game. That’s just how every game was in the playoffs. Every game was a nail biter. We had a ton of confidence. We just went into it saying, let’s just have fun. Whatever happens, happens. We’re not supposed to be here. All of these other schools are. They’re there every year.”

The Warhawks stunned top-seeded Utah State in their opener on May 26, scoring five runs in the top of the first, falling behind 8-6 and then getting three runs in the fifth and two in the sixth to win it 11-10.

The next game in the winner’s bracket was with fifth-seeded and defending champion Florida State. The Warhawks won that 8-5. After two rounds, UW-W and Penn State were the only unbeatens left. Virginia Tech stayed alive by beating the Warhawks 9-0 on May 30, but UW-W came back the next day and eliminated the Hokies 12-8 to get to the final. Penn State lost 9-6 to Florida State but then eliminated the Seminoles 6-2.

In the championship, two-run rallies in the bottom of the first and bottom of the fourth gave Penn State a 5-2 lead UW-W couldn’t dig out of.

“We just came up short,” Mudgett said. “It was the best week I’ve had in a long time. I didn’t get too many innings in there. I did OK when I was in. I played solid. It was awesome just being there.”

This year with the club will be Mudgett’s only season as he is not returning to Whitewater and is turning to a new path, working toward being an electrician. This summer he’s playing Dairyland League baseball with the Rib Lake Osprey and he’ll be playing plenty of softball too.