Coming into a pivotal conference weekend, the Jacks were unsure what to expect missing a couple of starters from their typical lineup. In a battle of the current 3 and 4 seeds in the UMAC standings, the Jacks needed to take care of business with only two more conference weekends remaining. In game one Friday, the Jacks got a dominant pitching performance by Senior Pitcher Kyle Strom (Crown Point, IN.) who went the distance in a 13-3 LumberJack victory. The Jacks were led on offense by Freshman Outfielder Jakob Freele (Smartville, CA.) and Freshman Second Baseman Matt Alberino (Medford, MA.) who collected 4 and 3 hits respectively. In this contest, the Jacks were able to push across 4 critical runs in the top of the 7th to push the score to 13-3 and took care of business in the bottom half of the inning to end the game after 7 innings.

On Saturday, the Jacks came out hot once again with another great pitching performance, this time by Senior Pitcher Logan Schuman (Wild Rose, Wis.) who got the complete game shutout victory in a 7-0 final. The Jacks defense was stout all game long seemingly shutting down any and all runs the Vikings tried to put together and led to the shutout.

In the second game, the Jacks were able to keep the ball rolling for most of the contest. The Jacks had a trio of pitchers battle to get the series sweep of Bethany Lutheran but fell just short as Bethany Lutheran Senior Adam Geiger hit a walkoff homerun in the bottom of the 9th to take the win 11-10. The Jacks were led on offense by Senior Shortstop Matt Lennon (Reedsburg, Wis.) who the Vikings struggled to get out all weekend. In the final game of the series Lennon went 4 for 5 with 4 runs batted in for a LumberJack offense that put up 10 runs. Going into the bottom of the 9th, the Jacks held a 10-6 lead, but the Vikings wouldn't go away easily and on the bat of Geiger were able to come from behind to take the only game of the series.

The Jacks will be back in action next weekend at home against North Central University with Friday's game beginning at 3pm and Saturdays games beginning at 12pm and 2:30pm.