An up-and-down finish to the regular season left the Platteville baseball team with a bitter taste in its mouth and a second-place finish in the Southwest Wisconsin Conference, despite leading the league most of the season.
     But in last Friday’s WIAA Division 2 regional opener against visiting Dodgeville, Coach Chuck Smet’s inconsistent Hillmen were nearly flawless.
     The offense belted out 11 hits and scored eight runs, starter Logan Emendorfer pitched a complete game shut out, striking out four, and the defense committed just two errors in an 8–0 victory over the Dodgers.
     Platteville (10–11) advanced to face second-seeded River Valley (15–7) in a D2 regional semifinal game that was played this past Tuesday.
     The winner will face either top-seed Viroqua (19–6) or fifth-seeded Richland Center (14–12) in Thursday’s regional final.
     In Friday’s victory over Dodgeville (6–16) Jesse Heer, Emendorfer, David Bast Logan Cooley and Christian Melby each had two hits for Platteville.
     Heer broke the scoreless tie with an RBI double in the bottom of the third inning.
     Emendorfer made it 2–0 two batters later with a booming double to deep center field, that glanced off the glove of Dodgeville’s Austin Larson, who nearly made a nice leaping catch at the fence.
     Bast blasted a solo homer to lead of the fourth to make it 3–0.
     Cooley added a two-out, two-run single in the fifth.
     Platteville plated three more runs in the bottom of the sixth against Dodgeville reliever Nick Crowley.
     Emendorfer (6–4) picked up his sixth win of the year, going the distance while allowing just four hits and three walks.
Dodgeville’s Jasper Meeker took the loss allowing five runs, four earned on eight hits in five innings of work.

WIAA Division 2 Regional Quarterfinal
Platteville 8, Dodgeville 0
(from Friday, May 25 @ Platteville)
Dodgeville    000    000    0    —  0   4  2
Platteville    002    123    x    — 8 11  2
Leading hitters — P: Jesse Heer 2x4, Logan Emendorfer 2x3, David Bast 2x3, Logan Cooley 2x4, Christian Melby 2x4. 2B — P: Heer, Emedorfer. W — Emendorfer (6–4, 7 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 4 SO, 3 BB). L — Meeker (5 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 4 SO, 2 BB).