The Carthage College baseball team (17-20, 7-14) opens a three-game series with College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin-opponent Illinois Wesleyan University (19-16, 12-9) on Friday, May 3 with a 6 p.m. twilight game at Jack Horenberger Field in Bloomington, Ill. The two teams conclude the series with a Noon doubleheader on Saturday, May 4, also at Horenberger Field. The series concludes Carthage's 2019 season. Carthage closed out its home schedule on Wednesday night with a 6-2 non-conference loss to Benedictine University (Ill.).
The Red Men lead the league in batting (.340, ranked seventh nationally thru April 29) by a wide margin, but the team earned run average of 5.86 is ranked sixth. The Carthage staff has issued 169 walks in 312 innings.
Centerfielder
Colton Klein, who broke his hand against Carroll University last Sunday, leads Carthage with a .441 batting average (second in the CCIW, ranked 18th nationally), 63 base hits (second in the league), 41 runs scored (tied for first in the league), 11 doubles and 29. First baseman
Vince Schwartz is hitting .421 (sixth in the CCIW) with 64 base hits (first in the CCIW), a league-leading 18 doubles, two triples, four home runs and a league-leading 51 RBI (tied for eighth place nationally thru April 29). Starting pitcher
Matt Willett is 4-1 with a 3.08 earned run average (seventh in the league).
Augie Schmidt IV (934-450-5, 32 years, a .674 career winning percentage thru May 2), coaches the Red Men, and his 934 wins are ranked fifth among active NCAA Division III coaches, and his winning percentage is ranked 23rd.
Dennis Martel (805-509-3, 31 years entering the season) coaches the Titans, who went 22-17 last year (11-13, 6th CCIW. Martel and Schmidt are the co-deans of the CCIW baseball coaches—both began their careers in 1988. Illinois Wesleyan is ranked sixth in CCIW batting (.298) and fifth in ERA (4.98). Centerfielder Nick Figus is ranked fifth among CCIW batting leaders at .422 leads the league in batting at .465, Pitcher Nick Brune is 5-2 with a 3.09 earned run average (eighth in the CCIW).
Illinois Wesleyan leads the Carthage series, which dates to 1914, 79-66. The Titans won last year's series, 2-1.
The Bloomington weather forecast for Friday calls for mostly-cloudy skies with a high temperature around 60 degrees and northeast winds around nine miles per hour. The Saturday forecast calls for partly-sunny skies, a high near 63 and north-northeast wins around nine miles and hour.
