Being in the World Series is a big deal for any baseball team, but here at UIS the Fall World Series is a bit different from other games.

In the UIS Fall World Series, the Prairie Stars gets split into two teams, Grey and Navy, and the losing team has to represent the Stars doing community service and fundraising.

This year, the Grey team beat the Navy team in all three games: 10-3, 6-3, and 11-9. The Navy team will travel to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on Oct. 30 and Nov. 19 to clean up the Illini tailgate and stadium following their football games, in exchange for community service hours and fundraising to finance the UIS baseball team travel and hotel costs.

This Series had a lot of strategy, both during the game and beforehand, since players and coaches are drafted by the seniors, who are the Series captains. This year the Grey team’s captains were Trey Hannam, Zach Patterson, and Will Stanka, and the Navy team’s captains were Austin Muench, Tyler Hilton, and Tyler Franko.

Hannam explained how the drafts went, saying, “Coaches took us to breakfast at Charlie Parker’s and each team took turns drafting. Pre-draft strategies have to be made to draft the right team.”

When it came to drafting the coaches, the Grey team selected Coach Ryan Copeland and the Navy team selected Coach Sam Boisner. As the draft took place, picks were posted on Twitter so all could see and follow along.

In game one, Grey took the win 10-3 with 29 at-bats and eight hits. Navy had 21 at-bats and just one hit.

Patterson led the way for the Greys, bashing a homerun and scoring twice. Ben Schanding also starred, as he belted three hits in four at-bats, scoring three runs in the process.

For the Navy team, the batting stat leader was Jett Wedekind, who had two at-bats, one hit, and one run scored. The other two scorers were Hilton and Ryan Deering.

On the other hand, the pitchers for both teams did a great job. The Grey team pitchers were Brock Immke, who threw four innings, had four strikeouts, and gave up no runs, Sidwell, who threw two innings, had one strikeout, and only gave up one run, Powell who had a tough time and gave up two runs, and Lukaschunski, who closed out the game for the win.

For the Navy team, the pitchers were Jon Laird and Zach Frey. Laird threw three innings, had three strikeouts, and gave up seven runs, and Frey also threw for three innings, had three strikeouts, and gave up three runs.

Hannam analyzed game one by saying, “We got on their starter pretty early and it seemed like their energy went away pretty early so we took advantage of that.”

Saturday’s game, game two, was again won by the Grey team 6-3, winning best of the three game series.

Hannam described the game by saying, “[It was] the best game by far, arguably our two best pitchers were throwing versus one another, so runs were tough to come by. Grey team came through in the late innings to pull through.”

Highlights from game two included a homerun hit by Franko for the Navy team, who had four at-bats, two hits, and no strikeouts.

For the Grey team, batting stats were led by Michael Rothmund with three at-bats, two hits, one run scored, two RBIs, and only one strikeout, and Troy Cantu, who had three at-bats, one hit, one run scored, two RBIs and one strikeout.

Pitchers for the Grey team were Cody Pazik, Sam Geraci, and Cameron Zunkel.

Pitchers for the Navy team were Gunnar Kay, Colby Carmichael, R.D. Lutze, and Chris Witzke.

Leaders for pitching were Kay, who pitched for four innings, had six strikeouts, and gave up no runs, and Pazik, who also pitched for four innings, had five strikeouts, and only gave up one run.

Going into game three, the series was already won by the Grey team, but the teams continued to compete for another day of community service and fundraising.

The Grey team came out with the win, 11-9.

The third game was an interesting game for the pitchers, having to pitch against the wind, and easy for batters to really get some help, resulting in three homeruns.

Hannam called game three a “battle of the bats,” noting the strong winds and how many runs were scored to “show out power from our hitters.”

Highlights from the game were easily led by Franko, who hit two homeruns, and Rothmund, who hit a homerun that went into the street behind left field.

The game had quite a few pitching changes and the Navy gave a good fight, getting a solid rally scoring three runs and just coming up short, losing the final game of the series.

As the UIS Baseball Fall World Series came to an end, Hannam said, “Every day we practice with each other, morning lifts are competitive too, but playing each other with a reward or consequence on the line really brings out the best players to show who can play in the spring.”

As the senior outfielder approaches his final season playing here at UIS, he has high hopes for the season, saying, “Of course we want to win every game, but school record is 28 wins. We have major talent in our hitting order and good pitchers, anything less than 35 wins would be disappointing … We know how good we can be, everyone has to stay healthy. Our chemistry is really good this year so that tops it off. World Series berth is goal of every year, but this year we have the talent and leadership for that to happen.”