In a year that has seen the baseball programs at Vermont and Northern Iowa cut and the program at Massachusetts narrowly avoid the same fate, another program is trying to escape the chopping block. Fundraising efforts are underway to save the baseball program at Division III Wisconsin-La Crosse, but there’s still a long way to go.

Spearheading the effort is Zach Thiel, who has two cousins who play for UW-L. Thiel has set up a website to try to raise $50,000 by the Sept. 1 deadline to spare the program for another year, and so far the site has raised $17,310 in just a few weeks. If you’d like to make a donation, visit www.saveuwlbaseball.com.

In order to secure the program’s long-term future, UW-L needs major donors to step forward. Athletic director Joe Baker said the program needs to raise between $350,000 and $375,000 by May to be included in the athletic department’s five-year budget. But the first step is to get to $50,000 this summer.