The Carthage College baseball team (19-17, 11-8 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin) opened a three-game series with CCIW-opponent and No. 12 North Central College (26-8, 13-6 CCIW) on Friday, May 6 with an 11-4 win over the Cardinals at Augie Schmidt Field in Kenosha, Wis. The two teams conclude the series, along with the regular-season conference schedule, on Saturday, May 7 with a Noon doubleheader at Zimmerman Stadium/Alumni Field in Naperville, Ill.
With the win, combined with a 4-2 win by Wheaton College (Ill.) over Illinois Wesleyan University in the first game of a Friday doubleheader, the Red Men moved into a third-place tie with Illinois Wesleyan (20-17, 11-8 CCIW).
Carthage took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on a sacrifice fly by
Reed Hero. The Red Men scored three times in the second to take a 4-0 lead.
Nick Pierce and
Anthony Fortunato hit RBI-singles in the inning, and
Jordan Wiegold added a sacrifice fly. The Cardinals got two runs back in the third and one in the fourth to cut the lead to 4-3. Carthage broke the game open with a five-run fourth inning. The Red Men got back-to-back home runs from
Anthony Fortunato and
Jordan Wiegold, the former a three-run shot, to up its lead to 8-3, and an RBI-double by
Matt Rave made it 9-3. An RBI-double by
Myles Farley in the seventh upped the Carthage lead to 10-3, and an RBI-double by
Zach Wade in the eighth made it 11-3. The Cardinals tallied a single run in the ninth to close out the scoring at 11-4.
Carthage pitcher
Chris DeRue (3-1) worked into the seventh inning and allowed three runs on eight hits, four walks and three strikeouts over six and one-third innings.
Luke Mentkowski worked the final two and two-thirds innings and allowed one run on five hits. Jordan Van Dyck (4-2), the first-of-six Cardinals hurlers, took the loss.
Jordan Wiegold,
Reed Hero,
Nick Pierce and
Anthony Fortunato had two hits apiece for the Red Men, with the latter driving in four runs.
"It's always important to win the first game of a series," said Carthage coach
Augie Schmidt IV, "but we're down to two conference games, so I guess it doesn't matter what order things happen in. They're all equally as important. We have a tradition with North Central of hard-fought games, and it's always been that way. We beat a really good team, and we played pretty solid baseball. We got great pitching from
Chris DeRue, and he kind of kept tabs on a really good hitting team. Their approach at the plate is a lot like ours—they like to swing the bat. Rumor has it that we need to win one more to clinch a tournament berth, but we're really just trying to play good baseball and let the chips fall where they may. We're trying not to make this a do or die situation. "
Following the North Central (Ill.) series, Carthage plays host to non-conference opponent Concordia University (Wis.) on Sunday, May 8 in a 1 p.m. contest, also at Augie Schmidt Field.