Box Score
The Carthage College baseball team (13-8, 5-2 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin), ranked 20th in the April 6 “D3baseball.com” poll, won the rubber game of a three-game set with CCIW-opponent Illinois Wesleyan University (10-11, 5-3), 16-6, on Sunday, April 11 at the Carthage Baseball Field in Kenosha, Wis. The two teams split a Saturday, April 10 doubleheader, Illinois Wesleyan winning the first game, 15-4, but Carthage taking the nightcap by a 12-4 margin.
In Sunday's series finale, Illinois Wesleyan took a 1-0 lead in the first inning after loading the bases and scoring on a fielder's choice-RBI off the bat of Kraig Ladd. Carthage came right back with four runs in the bottom of the first. The Red Men loaded the bases, and Will Hodges delivered a two-run double. Josh Albers followed with a run-scoring grounder and Nate Hughes an RBI-single for a 4-1 lead.
Carthage sent 12 men to the plate in a seven-run second inning. Back-to-back doubles by Billy Herrin and Trevor Whately gave Carthage a 5-1 lead, with Whately scoring on a passed ball for a 6-1 edge. The Red Men then put two runners on base, and Will Hodges tripled them both in to make the score 8-1. A single by Nate Hughes scored Hodges, and it was 9-1. Herrin, batting for the second time in the frame, singled in a run to make the lead 10-1. Whately followed with an RBI-single for an 11-1 margin.
The Titans scored a run in the third and added three runs in the fifth. In the fifth, IWU scored on Ryan Hopp's two-run single, along with a run scored on a wild pitch to cut the lead to 11-5. Carthage went up, 13-5, with two runs in the bottom of the fifth. Trevor Whately walked, stole second, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on a second wild pitch. Tim Hansen followed with a solo home run.
The Titans scored a run in the sixth to make it 13-6, but Carthage scored three in the seventh to go up, 16-6, and the game was halted on a 10-run rule. In the seventh, Joey Aiello doubled and scored on a single by Tim Hansen, and Will Hodges hit a long home run to rightfield, scoring Hansen and ending the game.
Hodges went three-for-five with a double, a triple, a home run and six RBI. The Carthage centerfielder went seven-for-13 in the three-game series, with two doubles, two triples, a home run and 10 RBI. Hansen went four-for-four with a home run and two RBI, and Trevor Whately also went four-for-four with a double and two RBI. The Red Men collected 20 hits against six Titan pitchers.
Carthage pitcher Eric Rohe (2-0) made his second appearance of the year and his first start after breaking his pitching hand in late-February. Rohe went the distance and allowed six runs, four earned, on eight hits and two walks, while striking out seven batters. Rohe also hit four batters, which tied a Carthage game record. Joe Sweeney (2-1) took the loss. Carthage plays host to conference-opponent and No. 26 Wheaton College (Ill., 18-5, 5-2 CCIW) on Wednesday, April 14 in a 1 p.m. twinbill, also at the Carthage Baseball Field.
“We got 10-run-ruled twice this past week,” noted Carthage coach
Augie Schmidt IV, “once against Wheaton and then in the first Illinois Wesleyan game. I don't even remember the last time that happened to us. After that, all we could do was win the next two games, which we did. This is a hard group to figure out, and we just don't know what to expect on any given day. It's feast or famine. The pitching was good in the last two games, and we showed some really good resilience in coming back after losing that 15-4 game on Saturday. Eric Rohe gave us a nice lift in the series-finale, and Chris Krepline pitched well in the Saturday nightcap. The conference race is a mess, it's wide open, and everybody is beating everybody. The Wheaton series is huge on Wednesday, and we need to play good baseball.”
