Say this much for this year's University of Wisconsin-Platteville baseball team: it has been entertaining to watch. Hot-hitting and high-scoring with a flair for late drama; the 2010 Pioneers have it all.

UW-Platteville tattooed the ball all spring, scored runs at a blistering pace, celebrated five walk-off victories and forced a major re-write of the school record book.

Most importantly, Eric Frese's club tied for the most victories -- 22 -- in program history and for just the second time qualified for the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference tournament.

That's where the Pioneers (22-18, 11-13) will play this weekend in Whitewater, Wis. UW-Platteville finished third in the conference to take the final spot in the league tournament and will face UW-Stevens Point (27-13, 16-8) on Friday at 10 a.m. Top-seeded UW-Whitewater (35-4, 21-3), the second-ranked team in the country, has a bye and will play the winner at 1 p.m. in the second round of the double-elimination tournament.

"It's awesome for any team to accomplish something like that," UW-P's Joe Nartowicz said of making the WIAC tourney.

offensive onslaught Highlights of some of the 27 UW-Platteville records the 2010 Pioneers tied or broke: * Most home runs, individual season: Aaron Hopson (11) * Most RBIs, individual game: Joe Nartowicz (8) * Most home runs, team game: 8 * Most runs scored, team game: 32 * Most home runs, team season: 47

"But we won't be satisfied with just getting to the tournament. We want to win some games and make some noise."

If the Pioneers do make noise, odds are it will be the ping of baseballs flying off their metal bats. Of the 27 school records the Pioneers tied or broke this spring, 23 were offensive. They were second in the league in team slugging percentage (.497) and runs scored (357) and third in batting average (.324).

Platteville returned a number of players from last year's team that won 21 games, then got a huge boost from a couple of junior college transfers. Junior Aaron Hopson arrived from Augustana (Ill.) College, and senior Nartowicz came from Madison Area Technical College.

Hopson's .680 slugging percentage and 11 home runs are second in the conference, and he is batting .361 with 43 RBIs. Nartowicz is batting .325 and slugging .541 with seven homers and 44 RBIs.

"I think a lot of us actually kind of knew that one through nine we were really going to have a solid batting order," Nartowicz said. "We knew we were going to be able to put up some runs."

The Pioneers have certainly done that, averaging 8.9 runs per game. Their productive offense has covered the warts of a hittable pitching staff and porous defense. Platteville has the league's second-worst team ERA (6.52) and committed the second-most errors (81), 26 more than Whitewater or Stevens Point.

"As good offensively as we've been all year, it's hard to sustain that on a daily basis in baseball," Frese said. "It still comes down to pitching and defense."

One bright spot on the pitching staff has been senior Wil Osmanski, whose seven victories are a school record. The 6-foot-7 righty who can throw a fastball, curve or changeup for a strike in any count is 7-2 with a 3.93 ERA and three complete games.

"He does a great job keeping hitters off-balance," Frese said.

Osmanski knows that if the Pioneers are to be successful this weekend, it must be because of -- not in spite of -- pitching and defense. For as good as Platteville has been offensively this spring, Whitewater and Stevens Point hit the ball even better. Meanwhile, the Warhawks and Pointers also have the top two staff ERAs and fielding percentages.

"We've had pitchers' meetings where we've said we have to step up our pitching because the offense has done it all year," Osmanski said. "They've been doing their part, now we have to do our part."

The good news for the Pioneers is they know they can beat Whitewater and Point; Platteville took one of four from each in the regular season with a one-run loss to both.

"Now we have to go out and prove to ourselves that we're good enough to play with them on the big stage," Frese said.