Box Score The Carthage College baseball team (2-4, 0-0 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin) opened its spring trip to Tucson, Ariz., on Thursday, March 21 with a come-from-behind, 7-6 win over Carleton College (4-4) at the Kino Sports Complex.
 
Carthage broke a scoreless tie in the third when Brian Huntsinger singled, advanced to second on a wild pitch and scored on a double by Drew Bailey.  Carleton tied the game in the fourth without the benefit of a hit.  After Red Men starting pitcher Andrew Arenson walked the first two batters, lead runner Nolan Baker moved up on a sacrifice bunt and scored on a squeeze-play bunt off the bat of David Stillerman.  Hikaru Mizuno doubled off Arenson to open the fifth inning, the first hit given up by the lefty.  Ray Yong was hit by a pitch, and Jeff Dsida followed with a double to score Mizuno.  A sacrifice fly by Nolan Baker scored Yong.  Dsida moved up on an infield single and scored on a failed pickoff play at first, giving the Knights a 4-1 lead.  Carleton upped its lead to 5-1 in the seventh on a run-scoring grounder off the bat of Hayden Tsutsui.
 
After failing to string together any hits through the first seven innings, the Red Men loaded the bases with no outs in the eighth.  Kyle Pusateri delivered a two-run single, and the score was 5-3.  Carthage re-loaded the bases, still with nobody out, and Mike Merritt hit a two-run single to tie the game, 5-5.  Brian Huntsinger followed with a single to score Mike Gentile with the go-ahead run, and Drew Bailey hit a sacrifice fly to give Carthage a 7-5 lead. 
 
In the top of the ninth, the Knights' Hayden Tsutsui homered off Red Men relief pitcher Eddie Gengo to cut the lead to 7-6.  Gengo walked the next two batters, and Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV summoned closer Mitch Lochen (Sr., Glenview, Ill./Glenbrook South).  Lochen struck out David Reynolds and got Cody Bohlman on a sinking liner to shortstop Drew Bailey for the final two outs.
 
Eddie Gengo Jr., (Fr., Western Springs, Ill./La-Grange-Nazareth Academy,1-0) was credited with the win, with Lochen picking up his first save.  Andrew Arenson (Jr., Naperville, Ill./North) pitched the first five innings and allowed four runs on three hits and three walks.  Thaddeus Gregory (0-1), the second-of-three Carleton pitchers, took the loss.  The Knights wasted a fine performance by their starter, Ted Harmon, who gave up three runs on eight hits and no walks and five strikeouts over seven innings.  Carthage's Brian Huntsinger (Jr., Glendale, Wis./Milwaukee-Nicolet) went three-for-four with an RBI, and Mike Merritt (Jr., Racine, Wis./Lutheran) went two-for-four with two RBI.  Carthage plays a Friday, March 22 doubleheader against Gustavus Adolphus College (1-7) at Noon.
 
“It felt good to win a game,” said Coach Schmidt.  “So far this season, we've won most of the game, and the other team has caught us late.  We've probably had three games stolen from us so far, so it was nice to steal this one.  We can see we have a lot of work to do, but we showed some character in coming back to win this one.  Andrew Arenson threw alright, but we haven't hit our stride, offensively.  We have some guys struggling really badly, and we're pressing.  We got a spark from Mike Merritt in the eighth inning, and it got contagious from there.  Eddie Gengo pitched OK—he got his head snapped with a home run in the ninth, and we called on a senior, Mitch Lochen, to get the last few outs.”