The Carthage College baseball team (8-1, 0-0 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin) defeated Carleton College (3-10), 8-5, on Monday, March 23 at Kino Sports Complex in Tucson, Ariz.
Carthage took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on an RBI-grounder off the bat of John Stevens. Carleton took a 2-1 lead in the third, thanks to a costly throwing error by Carthage rightfielder Sean Carroll. The Red Men came back with three runs in the bottom half to take a 4-2 lead. RBI-grounders by Reed Hero and Jared Helmich, along with an RBI-singe by Zach Wade accounted for those three runs. Another RBI-grounder by Helmich in the fifth made it 5-2, before the Knights got a run back in the top of the sixth. Carthage scored three times in the bottom of the sixth to go up by five, 8-3. Nick Schmidlkofer hit a two-run double, and Drew Bailey added an RBI-single. Carleton's Hayden Tsutsui hit a two-run homer in the seventh to cut that lead to 8-5, and that was the final margin.
Carthage pitcher Dalton Sjong (Jr., Paddock Lake, Wis./Salem-Westosha Central, 1-0) worked the first six innings and allowed three runs, two earned, on five hits and two walks. Sam Burnett pitched the seventh inning, and Luke Mentkowski (Jr., Greenfield, Wis./Whitnall) blanked the Knights on three hits over the final two innings to earn his second save. Sean Kelly (0-3) took the loss for Carleton. Nick Schmidlkofer (Sr., Wind Lake, Wis./Muskego) went two-for-five with two runs scored and two RBI, while Drew Bailey (Sr., Naperville, Ill./Neuqua Valley) went two-for-three with an RBI.
"We kind of took a step backwards in this game," said Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV, "even though we won. Defensively, we played terrible. We hit enough to get the win. The real story was how well Dalton Sjong pitched, but had we played better defense behind him it would have been a better story. Everybody talks about hitting, but if this team is going to do anything at all, it's going to be due to the defense. Usually on days we play like this, we muddle through and get a loss, so the tide may be turning."
The trip to the Tucson Invitational continues with an 11 a.m., MST game against Oberlin College on Tuesday, March 24, followed by Oberlin again on Wednesday, March 25 at 9 a.m. , MST.