The Carthage College baseball team (11-12, 4-5 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin) lost its third-straight conference game on Wednesday night, April 13 with a 4-0 loss to Wheaton College (Ill., 17-9, 6-3 CCIW) at Legion Field in Carol Stream, Ill.
 
With the loss, the Red Men remain in fifth place in the league and sit two games out of fourth place and three games behind first-place Illinois Wesleyan University.  The top-four teams qualify for the CCIW Baseball Tournament.
 
Wheaton took  a 1-0 lead in the second inning on an RBI-grounder by Josh Kimmel off Red Men starting pitcher Luke Mentkowski.  The Thunder made it 2-0 in the fourth on a fielder's choice-RBI off the bat of J.D. Carpenter.  Wheaton went up, 4-0, with an unearned run in the seventh, followed by an RBI-single by Kyle Mellinger to close out the scoring.
 
Thunder pitcher Daniel Bayer twirled a four-hit shutout, walking just two batters and striking out nine over nine innings.  Luke Mentkowski (1-4) took the loss and allowed the first two runs on six hits, no walks and five strikeouts over five innings.  Brandon Hrdlicka took over in the sixth and surrendered two runs on three hits, two walks and four strikeouts over the final three frames.
 
Carthage opens a three-game series against conference-opponent Augustana College (Ill., 17-9, 6-3 CCIW) by playing host to the Vikings in a 1 p.m. doubleheader on Saturday, April 16 at Augie Schmidt Field in Kenosha, Wis.