Box Score
For 30 minutes or so, it looked like the Carthage baseball team (28-17), ranked 36th in the final, regular-season “D3baseball.com” poll, was headed for an upset of No. 5 and defending-national-champion the University of St. Thomas (34-7) in the first round of the NCAA Division III Midwest Regional Championship. This year's regional is being played at Wisconsin-Whitewater's Prucha Field/Miller Stadium in Whitewater, Wis. The Red Men jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the middle of the second, with Tommies ace Matt Schuld (9-1, 1.74 earned run average entering the game) not quite settled in.
In the opening inning, Joey Aiello singled to left on a hit-and-run, sending Billy Herrin to third. Nate Hughes hit a roller to first, and St. Thomas went to second to force Aiello, with Herrin scoring. Will Hodges singled, sending Hughes to second. Josh Albers beat out a slow roller to third to load the bases, and Zach Kozlowski delivered a single up the middle scoring both Hughes and Hodges for quick, 3-0 lead. Carthage made it 4-0 in the second. With Tyler Eickmeyer on third, Joey Aiello hit screamer that Tommies second baseman John Bauer had in his glove but dropped. St. Thomas cut the lead to 4-3 in the second when Brady Field, the number-eight batter, lofted a fly ball to left that carried out for a three-run home run off Carthage starting pitcher Danny Dahm.
With Dahm still on the hill, the Tommies erupted for four runs in the third to take a 7-4 lead. An RBI-single by Roy Larson tied the game, 4-4, with Larson taking an extra base on a throwing error by Red Men shortstop Tyler Eickmeyer. Charles Bruchu singled in Larson. Drew Cremisino hit a double to score Bruchu, and Taylor Rahm singled in Cremisino to make it 7-4. A sacrifice fly by Matt Olson in the fourth gave the Tommies an 8-4 edge. Tom Wippler's two-out RBI-single in the sixth made it 9-4. St. Thomas scored five more in the seventh on RBI-singles by Brady Field and Matt McQuillan, a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch to Matt Olson, a bases-loaded walk to Tom Wippler and a sacrifice fly by Roy Larson bumped the Tommies' lead to 14-4. The Red Men strung together three hits to score two runs in the eighth, closing out the scoring at 14-6.
Matt Schuld (10-1) found his comfort zone after the second inning. The senior allowed only three singles and three walks from the third to the seventh innings. Schuld allowed six runs, five earned, on 10 hits and five walks over eight innings. Nick Gervais worked the ninth inning. Carthage pitcher Danny Dahm gave way to Bryan Kieffer in the sixth. Dahm allowed the first eight runs on seven hits and two walks over five innings. Dan Weber followed in the seventh and Billy Montemayor in the eighth. The Tommies' Brady Field went three-for-four with four RBI. Trevor Whately, Josh Albers and Tyler Eickmeyer had two hits apiece for the Red Men.
“We knew we were going to have to score some runs against St. Thomas,” said Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV. “We expended all of our top pitching in last weekend's CCIW Baseball Tournament, so we had to start Danny Dahm, one of our down-the-line guys, in this game. “Even though we jumped out 4-0, I knew we were going to have to score some runs. You just hope you can stay ahead of them long enough to put some pressure on. Matt Schuld is an All-American and a horse. He beat us in 10-inning game in the Metrodome in March, but we hit him a little bit today and made him work. Unfortunately, they got the three-run homer, and things sort slipped away after that. Danny Dahm pitched well, especially for a kid who's never even started a conference game. We got beat, and we didn't kick the ball all over the field. We were hoping to use Mario Perez in this game, but he just wasn't ready after pitching on Friday, and the other guys had even less rest. So, we went with the guy with most rest, and that decision looked good for awhile. Playing Aurora tomorrow will sort of like old times, since we've played them so many times in NCAA games.”
Carthage was the fifth-seeded team in the regional, and St. Thomas was seeded second. In the first game on Wednesday, top-seeded and No. 3 Wisconsin-Whitewater (39-5) defeated sixth-seeded Aurora University (27-15), 6-1, with fourth-seeded and No. 28 Wisconsin-Stevens Point (30-15) upending third-seeded and No. 8 the College of St. Scholastica (38-7), 12-1. Regional play continues on Thursday, May 20, with Carthage (28-17) playing Aurora (27-15) at 10 a.m., Wisconsin-Whitewater (39-5) taking on St. Scholastica (38-7) at 1 p.m., and St. Thomas (Minn., 34-7) playing Wisconsin-Stevens Point (30-15) at 4 p.m.
