UW-Milwaukee’s run through the Auburn regional hit its first true wall late Saturday night and early Sunday morning, when the Panthers fell 8-1 and were pushed into a winner-take-all Game 7 later on June 1. The loss at Plainsman Park in Auburn, Alabama, means the Panthers still need one more win over Auburn to keep alive their bid for a first trip to a super regional.
That next game was scheduled for 5 p.m. and carried on ESPNU, with the winner moving on to the super regional and the loser going home. For a program that has never reached that round, the stakes could not be cleaner, or higher.
Camden Kuhnke was part of the turnaround effort UW-Milwaukee needed, but the Hortonville native and normally reliable closer could not stop Auburn once the game turned in the second inning. Auburn scored five runs in that frame, including a three-run home run by Chase Fralick, and took control from there after UW-Milwaukee had opened the tournament by doing what it had done all spring: starting fast.
The Panthers had won nine straight games before the rematch, and they had already shown in this regional that they could seize early momentum, building a 10-0 lead against Auburn and a 9-0 lead against UCF. This time Auburn flipped that script. After Auburn beat UCF 9-3 in a game that began three hours late and was interrupted twice by weather delays, the Tigers came back to hold UW-Milwaukee to four hits and pile up 14 strikeouts across the night.
UW-Milwaukee’s own pitching kept the game from unraveling immediately. Sotaro Ishida threw three-plus scoreless innings in relief, but he ran into trouble in the sixth after walking one batter and hitting three others, and Auburn added three more runs to stretch the margin out of reach. By then, the Tigers had already made the Panthers chase the game, and that is not a position UW-Milwaukee has been in often during this tournament.
The same Panthers that won the Horizon League title in walk-off fashion now have one more chance to write the biggest ending in program history. If they can beat Auburn again on June 1, they will go to a super regional for the first time. If they cannot, the regional ends where Auburn decided it should.
