OSHKOSH, Wis.- Connor Walters (Libertyville, Ill./Libertyville) struck out 15 batters on Sunday afternoon (April 26) and retired 26 of the 38 batters he faced on his way to a complete game victory over UW-Stout in the first game of UW-Oshkosh baseball's pair of wins over the Blue Devils at Tiedemann Field.
 
The Titans' bats backed up Walters' outing with 12 hits in the 7-1 win before collecting another 11 hits in the series finale which was won by a score of 3-2.
 
Walters' career-high 15 strikeouts were the most recorded by a Titans pitcher since Luke Westphal struck out 16 Blue Devils in Menomonie on April 22, 2011.
 
Game two starter Baris Brua (Mundelein, Ill./Mundelein) struck out nine batters across six innings before Ryan Richter (Waukesha/Waukesha West) pitched the final three innings and got three more strikeouts. Between the trio of Titans, they collected a full game's worth of 27 punchouts.
 
The Titans extended their winning streak over the Blue Devils to nine games dating back to a seven inning, 10-0 win in Oshkosh during the 2024 series finale.
 
Oshkosh (15-20, 11-13 WIAC) moved into a tie with UW-River Falls (18-17, 11-13 WIAC) for the final spot in the four-team WIAC Tournament (presented by Culver's) with four games remaining in the regular season. The Titans will travel to face UW-La Crosse, which is receiving votes in both the D3baseball.com and American Baseball Coaches Association NCAA Division III polls, at Copeland Park on Friday and Saturday (May 1-2) while River Falls hosts UW-Eau Claire (19-16, 12-11 WIAC) at First National Bank of River Falls Field.
 
The conference tournament will be held in Whitewater at Prucha Field on May 7-9 as the Warhawks claimed the league title Sunday by completing their sweep of the Falcons at home.
 
Walters (3-3) scattered nine hits, walked a batter and hit two for one run in his outing while fanning five consecutive Blue Devils between the third out of the first inning and the first out of the third. He added two strikeouts in the fourth, sixth, eighth and ninth frames. The complete-game outing was Walters' first since a nine-inning game in the championship game of the Saint Peter Regional in 2025.
 
Braydon Skenandore (De Pere/West De Pere) paced the Titans with a 5-for-8 day at the plate, notching two RBI. He was followed by a 4-for-8 Owen Housinger (Hawthorn Woods, Ill./Stevenson) who had one RBI, three runs scored and a double while both Brenden Max (Libertyville, Ill./Libertyville) and Aaron Davis (Darien, Ill./Downers Grove South) collected three hits. Davis also scored three times between the pair of wins and Danny Connelly (Mundelein, Ill./Mundelein) accumulated a team-high three RBI.
 
Walters escaped some early trouble by inducing a foul out to Cullen Kirchberg (DeForest/DeForest) at third base and recording his first strikeout after Stout put its first two batters of the game on base with singles through the infield and loaded the bases with a one-out walk.
 
Housinger then drew a five-pitch walk as Oshkosh's first batter of the day, moving to second on a Logan Schill (Pewaukee/Pewaukee) groundout and scoring when Skenandore singled between the shortstop and third baseman.
 
After Walters sat the Blue Devils down in order with a 12-pitch, three-strikeout second frame, Max led off the home half of the inning with a triple down the left field line and made the score 2-0 on a Connelly sacrifice fly to center.
 
Stout was prevented from scoring again in the top of the third inning, stranding two runners by way of a flyout and another strikeout before leaving runners on second and third in the fourth inning with back-to-back punchouts.
 
The Blue Devils put their only run of the game on the board in the fifth inning when Austin Miller hit his seventh home run of the season on the second pitch he saw.
 
The Titans added an insurance run in the sixth inning when Davis knocked a one-out single through the right side, stole second, and scored when Max singled to left field.
 
In the eighth inning, Davis opened the frame with a leadoff double and scored when Connelly doubled. Gavin Persson (Plainfield, Ill./Plainfield North) then sent Connelly across the plate with an RBI single up the middle of the infield. Two runs scored at the end of the inning when Persson scored on a sacrifice bunt by Jack McKellips (Oshkosh/Lourdes Academy) and Housinger, who reached on a single, tallied the seventh run as David Wick (Plainfield, Ill./Plainfield North) got himself caught in a pickle between first and second.
 
Walters closed out his fantastic day on the mound with a strikeout, a flyout and another strikeout in the ninth inning.
 
Antonio Zeer, Stout's starting pitcher, fell to 0-3 on the season after going 5.1 innings and allowing two runs on four hits, three walks and a hit batter against six strikeouts. Nathan Weckop threw the next two innings and gave up four runs on seven hits and Collin Crane finished out the game with two-thirds of an inning of work, giving up a hit and a walk for a run.
 
Brua started on the bump for Oshkosh in the final game of the weekend and went six full innings. He scattered three hits, two walks and two hit batters for a run against his nine strikeouts on his way to improving his season record to 3-3.
 
The Titans quickly jumped out to a 2-0 lead with a run scored in both the first and second innings while Brua struck out two batters in both frames.
 
McKellips led off the home half of the third inning with a single and he advanced to third on a Trevor Morris (Naperville, Ill./Neuqua Valley) single to right field but was left 90 feet from home as Stout recorded three straight infield outs.
 
The Blue Devils cut the deficit to 2-1 in the fourth inning on a sacrifice fly and stranded Titans on second and third in the other half of the inning.
 
Connelly scored Oshkosh's third run of the game in the sixth, running home from first base when Housinger's double bounced down the left field line to the Titans' bullpen.
 
Richter opened his outing with back-to-back strikeouts in the top of the seventh inning after giving up a leadoff single. He later left two Blue Devils on base by getting a groundout to Davis at shortstop.
 
After a quick bottom of the eighth inning, Stout got the score back within a run on consecutive doubles and put runners on the corners, but a first pitch pop up to Housinger in the next at-bat secured the win.
 
Treysen Witt (2-2) was assigned the loss after his six-inning outing that allowed three runs (two earned) on 10 hits and a walk against one strikeout. Grant Ingram was the only Blue Devils reliever in the game and he went two innings with two strikeouts, allowing no runs on a single hit.