The Carthage College baseball team (7-11, 2-6 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin) salvaged the final game of a three-game series with CCIW-opponent and No. 37 Augustana College (Ill., 15-8, 3-5 CCIW), 10-7, on Saturday, April 7 at the Carthage Baseball Field in Kenosha, Wis. The Vikings swept a Friday, April 6 doubleheader from the Red Men, 2-1 and 9-3.
Saturday's win snapped a four-game Carthage losing streak. The Red Men got on the board early with a pair of two-run homers in the first inning by Kyle Frye (Sr., Lindenhurst, Ill./Lake Villa-Lakes Community) and Zach Kozlowski (Sr., Menomonee Falls, Wis./Sussex-Hamilton). Augustana got two runs back in the second on an RBI-triple by Kurt Schmidt and a sacrifice fly by Joe Cecchi. A Carthage fielding error by shortstop Drew Bailey in the third and an errant throw by catcher Nick Schmidlkofer on pickoff play at second led to a two-run single by Brandon Jasper that tied the game, 4-4. The Red Men broke the tie and went ahead to stay in the fourth on a long, two-run single off the leftfield wall by Schmidlkofer, a sacrifice fly by Tyler Eickmeyer and an error by Augustana shortstop Jeremy Juhl that accounted for four runs and an 8-4 lead.
The Vikings scored a run in the fifth to cut the lead to 8-5, but a run-scoring single by Schmidlkofer in the seventh returned the margin to four runs, 9-5. Augustana reduced that margin to two runs in the eighth, 9-7, with an RBI-triple by Mike Barker and a two-out fielding error by second baseman Stevo Kraynak that led to a second run. Carthage closed out the scoring with an unearned run in the bottom of the eighth.
The Red Men collected 11 hits off four Vikings pitchers. Kozlowski went three-for-three with two runs scored and two RBI. Frye went three-for-five, also with two runs and two RBI, and Schmidlkofer had two hits in three trips with three RBI. Pitcher Andrew Arenson (So., Naperville, Ill./North, 1-0) was the winning pitcher. Arenson allowed five runs, just two earned, on six hits and three walks over six innings, while striking out seven batters. Jake Jewell (Fr., Muskego, Wis.) worked the final three innings for his first save. Jared McIntosh (1-3), the Augustana starting pitcher, took the loss. Carthage plays host to conference-opponent North Park University on Wednesday, April 11 in a 3 p.m. game, also at the Carthage field.
"This team needed a win today as bad as any team I've ever coached," said Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV. "We were out here at 8:30 this morning practicing, and hopefully, we're at a point where we can start learning how to win. We had some guys step up today. Andrew Arenson pitched well, and freshman Jake Jewell closed the door. We're going to enjoy this one, because nothing good happened yesterday. The only way I know to turn this season around is to work our butts off, and we'll start that on Monday. We have to work through this. We have a lot of games this week, but if we can get on a positive roll, that will really help us. If we can start playing good baseball, we can climb out of this."