On May 30, 2025, in the afternoon in Auburn, Alabama, the UW–Milwaukee Panthers were acting in a way that didn’t immediately make sense. With a record of 27 wins and 31 losses, they were the fourth seed going into the NCAA Regional. They were a team that had lost more games than they had won during the regular season, and they were competing in a mid-major conference that doesn’t typically send teams to Southern regionals to defeat programs as well-known as Auburn.
And yet there they were, one victory away from a Super Regional for the first time in the program’s history after scoring 13 runs against the top seed and then 13 more against Central Florida in the following game. Milwaukee had not received much attention from the college baseball community, but that quickly changed.
Franklin Field, located in the Wisconsin suburb of Franklin, is where the Milwaukee Panthers play their home games. This is hardly the kind of legendary location that is associated with collegiate baseball. The program plays in the Horizon League, which is a mid-major conference in every sense of the word: respectable programs, little national recognition, and an automatic NCAA berth for the conference tournament winner.
This year, UWM made it to that tournament and won it with a walk-off home run. It was the kind of moment that, in a single swing, turns a squad that had been languishing below.500 into one with something to prove and a position to do so.
With a nine-game winning streak and what outfielder Grant Ross later told ESPN was “the energy of the Brewers,” the Milwaukee Brewers, an MLB team that had been struggling to make it through the National League Central with a squad of underappreciated and re-acquired players, they arrived at Auburn. “Bunch of us feel the same way,” Ross remarked. “A lot of bounce-backs from different schools, JUCO transfers, a lot of guys with unique stories.”
It is worthwhile to consider their self-description, “the Misfit Toys,” as it accurately depicts how programs such as UWM generally function. They don’t recruit from the same pool as SEC schools, which have facilities that resemble minor league stadiums and year-round scouting budgets. They accept players who didn’t fit anywhere else, who are recovering from injuries, or who made academic and athletic choices that weren’t compatible with a Power Five scholarship offer. When the risk pays off, the team has something to prove and a chip on its shoulder. It performed spectacularly in the Auburn regional.
The Milwaukee Area Technical College Stormers, who play at the NJCAA Division II level from their downtown campus on West State Street, are another team in Milwaukee’s college baseball scene. The MATC program serves a different purpose by offering competitive baseball opportunities to students who may be pursuing vocational degrees in addition to their athletic careers or who are using community college as a springboard toward a four-year transfer. It doesn’t attract the same attention as a Division I tournament run. It’s a more subdued but sincere tale.
Observing UWM’s performance in the 2025 tournament gave me the impression that the program had crossed a line from which it would be difficult to recover. Prior to this season, the Panthers had not won the NCAA Tournament in 27 years. Because of this background, the Auburn upset and the Central Florida rout seem less like coincidences and more like a program that has finally discovered the ideal balance between timing and tenacity.
The question Milwaukee baseball fans will be keeping an eye on over the next years is whether it turns into a prolonged run or just one outstanding season. But regardless of what happens next, the two 13-run explosions in Auburn and the walk-off home run that propelled them to the Regionals are in the record books.Milwaukee Baseball College Scene: How UWM’s Cinderella Run to the NCAA Regional Finals Rewrote What’s Possible for the Panthers
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