It was better-looking baseball than it has been of late, but the result was the same for Carthage College (14-18, 4-13) on Saturday, April 20, as the Red Men fell to College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin-opponent North Central College (23-7, 13-3), 3-1, at Augie Schmidt Field in Kenosha, Wis. North Central swept the three-game series after taking both ends of a Friday twinbill, 5-4 and 10-4, at Zimmerman Stadium/Alumni Field in Naperville, Ill.
With Saturday's victory, the first-place Cardinals won their ninth game in a row, while the eighth-place Red Men dropped their eighth-straight contest. With seven league games yet to play, Carthage remains four games behind Illinois Wesleyan University for the sixth and final berth in the CCIW Baseball Tournament.
On Saturday, North Central took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI-single by John Carmody. Carthage tied things up in the bottom half on an RBI-double by Vince Schwartz, the CCIW-leader in that category. Carmody singled in another run in the third to give the Cardinals a 2-1 edge. An RBI-double by Rob Marinec in the fifth upped the North Central lead to 3-1 to close out the scoring.
The Red Men loaded the bases with two outs in the eighth, but Cardinal relief pitcher Tyler Jones got Kyle Engstrom on a swinging strike three to end the threat. In the Carthage ninth, Colton Klein led off with a single, but Jones retired the next three batters to preserve the win.
Jason Shanner (4-0) was the winning pitcher and limited the Red Men to one run on six hits, two walks and nine strikeouts over six innings. Justin Rios entered the game in the seventh, and Jones went the final inning and one-third to collect his fifth save. Carthage pitcher Jacob Delabio (0-6) was off to a great start with seven strikeouts, five looking, in the first three innings before leaving the game with arm tightness. Pasquale Atteo pitched the final six innings and allowed just a run on six hits and three walks.
Vince Schwartz went three-for-five with his 14th double and an RBI. Schwartz just missed what would have been a go-ahead three-run homer in the fifth inning when an 18 mile an hour wind held up a fly ball to deep left-centerfield. Colton Klein also had three hits in five trips to the plate. Carthage stranded 12 base runners.
"It was a tough game against a good team," said Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV. "We got good pitching, we put a lot of guys on base, and we put a lot of pressure on North Central, but we just couldn't get the big hit. It was just one of those games where we couldn't quite get it going. The game went down to the last out. If you look at this game without considering the recent past, you'd be fine with it, but when you put it on top of what's happened recently, it makes you feel even worse. Vince Schwartz' fly ball in the fifth—he crushed it into the wind. You can't hit a ball any harder than that. If it goes out, it's a totally different game. It feels like we're working against some kind of current, and we can't catch up and something bad has to happen. Even when we do something right, it's not good enough. It's crazy, and I've never been a part of this kind of losing streak."
Carthage plays host to conference-opponent Wheaton College (Ill., 21-10, 11-7) in a Wednesday, April 24 twilight game at Augie Schmidt Field beginning at 6 p.m.