The 1995 Carthage College baseball team was the third Firebirds team to win a regional title and qualify for the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship.  It was my first, having just arrived in Kenosha, Wis., from Kalamazoo, Mich., the previous October.
 

Head coach Augie Schmidt IV had taken over the program in 1988 and struggled through a 4-27 season that first year.  That was his last losing campaign for a long, long time.  He went 22-18 in 1989, 23-14 in 1990 and 22-5-1 in 1991.
 
Schmidt 's 1992 team went 30-14 and won the school's first College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin title since 1973 and made its first-ever NCAA Midwest Regional appearance.  The Firebirds went 1-2 in regional action at Oshkosh North High School, with all three games against the powerhouse of the time, Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
 
In 1993, Carthage had another 30-14 season, won the inaugural CCIW Baseball Tournament and won the NCAA Central Region championship at Elfstrom Stadium in Geneva, Ill.  At the national championship at C.O. Brown Stadium in Battle Creek, Mich., the Firebirds went 2-2 to finish third, winning a pair of games in the loser's bracket before being eliminated by Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
 
The 1994 team, with a 32-15 mark, lost in the conference tournament to North Central College but was awarded an at-large NCAA bid.  The NCAA did not institute automatic qualifiers for Division III baseball until 2000.  The Firebirds won their second-straight regional title over Simpson College in Geneva.  At the national championship, Carthage won its first game over California-San Diego, lost to Wesleyan University in the second round and defeated North Carolina Wesleyan University in the third round before being eliminated by  Wisconsin-Oshkosh in the semifinals to finish third again.
 
The 1995 team looked like it had the goods to go a little farther.  After a 9-1 spring trip to Panama City Beach, Fla., the Firebirds won their first 10 CCIW games in a row, en route to a then-school record 37-8-1 mark, 14-4 in league play and a conference championship.  Carthage, ranked No. 3 in the nation, then played host to the first-of-two NCAA Central Regionals at Simmons Field in Kenosha.  The Firebirds lost their second game to Aurora University, their chief regional rival in those years, but eliminated Upper Iowa University to advance to the championship round against Aurora.  The Firebirds won two-straight games over the Spartans to advance to their third-straight national championship appearance.
 
Playing at Municipal Stadium in Salem, Va., the former minor league home of Willie Stargell and the Pittsburgh Pirates, Carthage drew No. 1 Wisconsin-Oshkosh in the first round but lost a 7-2 game to the Titans and future MLB pitcher Jarrod Washburn.  The Firebirds came back to defeat Eastern Connecticut State University and Marietta College before being eliminated by Methodist College for a fourth-place finish.  The Marietta game ended after 1 a.m., with Carthage having to play Methodist later that day.  "I would never want to say that the late ending of the Marietta game had any effect on losing to Methodist," Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV said at the end of the day.  "We got beat by a good team.  We came here to win this thing.  This is three times we've been after the championship.  Hopefully we can come back and make another run at this thing."

1995 Batting Order  

Catcher John Zuleger, whose son Joe is a freshman on the 2022 Carthage team, was named American Baseball Coaches Association first-team All-America for the second year in row with a .374 batting average, 52 runs scored, 16 doubles, 15 home runs, 49 RBI and a .748 slugging percentage.  Outfielder Shorty Flees earned ABCA second-team All-America honors with a .389 average, 43 runs scored, 10 doubles, 12 home runs, 54 RBI and 10 stolen bases, while pitcher Brent Sagedal (9-3, 3.12 earned run average) was named to the third team. 

Zuleger, Flees and Sagedal were also named first-team All-CCIW, along with second baseman Len Atkins (.315, 8 doubles), shortstop Scott Behnke (.343, 7 doubles) and outfielder Jack Richarz (.272, 20 stolen bases).  First baseman Mark Beyer, .317, 12 doubles, five home runs, 39 RBI) outfielder Alan DeLoria (.404, eight doubles, seven stolen bases), designated hitter Gavin Winfield (.351, 11 doubles, seven home runs, 36 RBI) and pitcher Brian Scuglik (7-1, 4.45 ERA) earned second-team all-conference honors.
 
In addition to All-American Sagedal and all-conference honoree Scuglik, the pitching staff included starter Dave Neinas (5-0, 4.34), starter Will Madson (5-1, 5.07) and closer Layne Grissman (4-1, 1.83).  Grissman set a Carthage record that year with six saves, a mark was matched by Brandon Roth in 2002 and stood until Sam Wilhelms saved seven games in 2014.  The current record of nine was set by Brian Polaski in 2018.

Pitching Staff