The Carthage College baseball team (18-8, 10-5 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin), ranked 14th in the April 12 National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association /"D3baseball.com" poll, lost two-of-three games of a tripleheader with CCIW-opponent and No. 26 Illinois Wesleyan University (19-10, 11-4 CCIW) on Saturday, April 23 at Jack Horenberger Field in Bloomington, Ill. Carthage lost the first game, 2-0, won the second contest by a 4-0 margin but lost the third game, 5-4.
In the first game, Illinois Wesleyan broke a scoreless tie in the third inning on a two-out, two-run single by Kevin Sullivan. Carthage's Chris D'Angelo broke up a no-hit bid by the Titans' Jason Pankau (Sr., Elmhurst, Ill./York) with a one-out double in the fifth that sailed over the centerfielder's head. That was all the offense the Red Men could muster against Pankau (5-1) who twirled a one-hitter, walked none and struck out seven batters. His other 14 outs were recorded with 10 ground outs and four fly outs. Mario Perez (Sr., Gurnee, Ill./Warren Township, 2-2) took the tough loss. Perez surrendered two runs on five hits and two walks.
In the second game, Carthage took a 1-0 lead in the third on an RBI-grounder by John Hasser. The Red Men made it 3-0 in the fourth, scoring one run on a base-loaded double play and the other on an RBI-single by Billy Herrin. The lead went to 4-0 in the fifth when Joey Aiello reached second base on a throwing error by Titan third baseman Jeff Grodecki and wound up scoring on an RBI-single by Will Hodges. That was all the support that Red Men pitcher Danny Dahm (Sr., Morton Grove, Ill./Skokie-Niles West, 2-0) needed. Dahm limited the Titans to two hits and two walks over seven innings, while striking out nine. Joe Sweeney (5-2) was the losing pitcher. Mike Petti, Joey Aiello and Kyle Pusateri had two hits each for Carthage.
The Red Men took a 1-0 lead in the second inning of the third game when Mike Wasche hit an RBI-double. A solo home run by the Titans' Kevin Callahan in the bottom of the second tied the game, 1-1. Carthage scored three times in the third to take a 4-1 lead behind starting pitcher Eric Rohe (Jr., Mundelein, Ill.). Will Hodges hit an RBI-triple off the rightfield fence, and Josh Albers followed with a towering two-run homer to left. Jeff Grodecki hit a solo home run in the fourth for IWU to cut the lead to 4-2. In the fifth, the Titans loaded the bases with two outs, and Mark McDermott delivered a run-scoring to shave the lead to 4-3. Grodecki proceeded to work a bases-loaded walk from Rohe, and the game was tied at 4-4. Carthage changed pitchers, bringing in freshman Andrew Arenson to replace Rohe, but Arenson allowed Ryan Hopp to score on a wild pitch, giving the Titans a 5-4 lead. Illinois Wesleyan brought first-game winner Jason Pankau back to pitch in the sixth inning, relieving starter Nick Mehn. Pankau blanked the Red Men over the final two innings to earn his second save, with Mehn (4-1) picking up the win. Eric Rohe (4-1) was the losing pitcher.
"It was a long day, or at least a lot of games," said Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV, "but I think it was what we had to do. Considering the shaky weather we've had and missed classes, playing three games today was the right thing to do. I'm not second guessing myself on playing a tripleheader, but I am second guessing myself on playing all seven-inning games. There was one difference-maker on the field today, and that was Jason Pankau. Maybe if we'd played nine-inning games, he wouldn't have been quite so dominant in two games. He is so much better than he was a year ago. He's more confident, more aggressive, and his change-up is really a great out pitch.
"We played pretty good baseball for the most part," continued Schmidt. "Eric Rohe had one bad inning in the third game, which we never really saw coming, and we threw a freshman pitcher, Andrew Arenson, into a tough spot. To give up the go-ahead run on a wilds pitch, that hurts. Danny Dahm pitched fantastic in the second game, and we hit just enough to get ourselves a win. This was a tough day for us—I doubt we can pass Illinois Wesleyan, which means we may have to come down here again in three weeks for the conference tournament. They say days like this build character. Well, we got a lot of that today."
Carthage's last tripleheader came on March 21, 2001 in Panama City, Fla., when the Red Men played Grand View College, Rio Grande College and Kalamazoo College. The last scheduled tripleheader against one team was against Dallas Baptist University on April 4, 1980 in Dallas, Texas.
Carthage was scheduled to play host to non-conference opponent Marian University (Wis.) on Tuesday, April 26 in a 1 p.m. doubleheader at the Carthage Baseball Field in Kenosha, Wis., but the Sabres were forced to cancel that set after snow in Northern-Wisconsin forced re-scheduling of several Northern Athletics Conference games. Instead, the Red Men will return to action on Wednesday, April 27 by traveling to Aurora, Ill., to play non-conference foe Aurora University in a 3 p.m. game at Joe Bernard Field at Solfisburg Park