The Carthage College baseball team (6-9, 1-2 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin) lost the rubber game of a three-game series with CCIW-opponent North Central College (9-7, 2-1 CCIW), 11-1, on Saturday, March 30 at Zimmerman Stadium/Alumni Field in Naperville, Ill. 

The Red Men and the Cardinals opened their conference schedules on Friday, March 29 by splitting a doubleheader.  North Central won the opening game, 4-2, but Carthage came back to take the nightcap by an 11-3 margin after scoring all their runs in the final five innings, nine of those in the last three frames.  Friday's twinbill was originally scheduled for the new Augie Schmidt Field in Kenosha, Wis., but that facility is still partially frozen. 

In Saturday's series finale, North Central took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on an RBI-double by Zac Pacanowski.  That's the way it stayed until the seventh when Carthage tied the game, 1-1.  Mike Merritt reached second on a dropped fly ball by Cardinal rightfielder Frank Sutphin and scored on a single by Matt Richer.  Carthage' Raymond Wojciechowski (Fr., Spring Grove, Ill./Richmond-Burton) cruised through the first six innings, allowing just one run on six hits and three walks.  Mitch Lochen (2-2) took over to start the seventh inning, but North Central rocked the senior reliever to the tune of eight runs on seven hits, a walk and a hit batter in just a third of an inning to take a 9-1 lead.  The Cardinals added two runs in the eighth off Weston Peterson to take an 11-1 lead, and the game was called due to a 10-run rule.  Carthage managed only six hits off North Central pitcher Ben Krusen (1-1), who allowed just one unearned run and walked three over eight innings.

Carthage is scheduled to play host to CCIW-opponent North Park University on Tuesday, April 2 in a 1 p.m. doubleheader that will open the new Augie Schmidt Field.