The Carthage College baseball team (27-13) lost to Illinois Wesleyan University (27-15), 5-1, on Saturday, May 9 in the championship round of the CCIW Baseball Tournament at Zimmerman Stadium/Alumni Field in Naperville, Ill. The two teams will play a final game on Sunday, May 10, beginning at 1 p.m. Sunday's winner receives the league's automatic qualifier to the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship.
Carthage opened tournament play on Thursday, May 8 with a 3-2 win in 10 innings over top-seeded North Central College (25-15). Illinois Wesleyan University (25-14) defeated Wheaton College (Ill., 21-20), 7-1, in the other first-round contest. North Central (26-15) eliminated Wheaton (21-21), 13-1, in a loser's bracket game on Friday morning. Carthage edged Illinois Wesleyan (25-15), 3-2, in Friday's second game to advance to the championship round. Friday's third game between North Central (26-15) and Illinois Wesleyan (25-14) was postponed until Saturday, May 9 at 11 a.m. due to an unfavorable weather forecast. When that game was played, Illinois Wesleyan (26-14) eliminated North Central (26-16), 6-4, to advance to the championship round.
In Saturday's contest, Illinois Wesleyan took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on an RBI-single by Mike Plecki. An RBI-grounder by Pat Mollo in the fifth made it 2-0 Titans. Illinois Wesleyan added two more runs in the sixth to extend its leas to 4-0. Gino Cavalieri singled in the first run in the sixth, followed by a Tim Coonan sacrifice fly. The Red Men finally got on the scoreboard in the seventh on an RBI-single by Jared Knoespel. The Titans got that run back in the top of the eighth on an RBI-double by Plecki to make it 5-1.
Sean Coonan (4-2) was the winning pitcher. He limited the Red Men to one run on eight hits and a walk over six and two-thirds inning. Jonathan Vlk worked the final two and one-third innings to earn his first save. Brandon Hrdlicka (Jr., Gurnee, Ill./Warren Township, 4-3) took the loss and surrendered four runs on eight hits and three walks over five and one-third innings. C.J. Casey pitched the final three and two-thirds innings. Drew Bailey, Jared Helmich and Matt Rave had two hits each for Carthage.
"We had a hard time today," said Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV. "We didn't hit the ball well. We had nine hits, but we didn't muster anything up or get anything going. Illinois Wesleyan basically out-executed us. They got five runs on the same number of hits. When they needed a ground ball to score a run, they got it. I thought Brandon Hrdlicka pitched well, except for a few too many three-ball counts. It was a baseball game where they just beat us. Now we're in a situation where it's winner-take-all for the NCAA berth. If you told me last winter that we had one game with Illinois Wesleyan to go to the NCAA tournament, I would have jumped at that. We're get ready to get after it tomorrow."