The Carthage College baseball team (23-9, 11-7 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin) split a Sunday, April 26 doubleheader with CCIW-opponent Illinois Wesleyan University (22-11, 12-6 CCIW) at Jack Horenberger Field in Bloomington, Ill. The Titans won the first game, 2-1 in 10 innings, but the Red Men took the nightcap by a 5-1 margin. Illinois Wesleyan won the three-game series after defeating Carthage, 11-1 in seven innings, on Friday night, April 24.
With the series loss, Carthage fell into third place, trailing North Central College (22-12, 13-4 CCIW) and Illinois Wesleyan, and just a game ahead of fourth-place Wheaton College (Ill., 15-18. 9-7).
Illinois Wesleyan took a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning of the opener, but
Matt Rave hit a solo home run in the fifth to tie the game, 1-1. That's the way it stayed until the 10th inning when the Titans scored the game-winning run. Nick Huskisson singled with one out and went to second on a single by Adam Glogovsky. Tim Coonan singled to left, but Carthage leftfielder
Jared Knoespel threw out Huskisson at the plate, with Glogovsky advancing to third. The next batter, Derek Idstein, hit an infield roller that scored Glogovsky with the winning run.
Dan Truesdale (2-0), in relief of John Munyon, was the winning pitcher. Munyon allowed one run on seven hits, no walks and 10 strikeouts over nine innings.
Chris Pedrak (Fr., Woodridge, Ill./Downers Grove-South, 1-1) took the loss.
Jared Helmich (Jr., Lake Villa, Ill./Fox Lake-Grant Community) started the game and gave up just one run on six hits, two walks and six strikeouts over eight innings. Helmich was also hitless in four trips, which snapped his school-record, 30-game hit streak.
In the nightcap, after Illinois Wesleyan scored a run in the second inning, Carthage the game in the sixth with an unearned run. RBI-singles by
Nick Pierce and
Drew Bailey in the eighth gave the Red Men a 3-1 lead.
Jared Knoespel scored on a wild pitch, and Helmich doubled in a run for a 5-1 margin.
Tim Sulik (So., Milwaukee, Wis./Pius XI, 4-1) was the winning pitcher for Carthage, as he limited Illinois Wesleyan to one run on five hits, a walk and 10 strikeouts in a nine-inning, complete-game effort. Louis Acklin (0-4), the fifth-of-seven Titans hurlers, took the loss.
Jared Helmich,
Graham Wick,
Zach Wade and
Nick Pierce each had two hits for the Red Men.
Carthage travels to Fond du Lac, Wis., on Wednesday, April 29 for a 6 p.m. non-conference game with Marian University (Wis., 20-16) at Herr-Baker Field.