The Carthage College baseball team (6-7, 1-2 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin), ranked 29th in the March 27 National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association/"D3baseball.com" poll, salvaged the final game of a three-game set with CCIW-opponent North Central College (11-5, 2-1 CCIW) on Sunday, April 1 with a 5-3 win over the Cardinals at the Carthage Baseball Field in Kenosha, Wis. The Red Men opened their conference schedule on Saturday, March 31 by losing both ends of a doubleheader to North Central (Ill.), 3-2 and 8-1, at Zimmerman Stadium/Alumni Field in Naperville, Ill.
In Sunday's game, Carthage broke a scoreless tie with a run in the fourth inning. Tanner Wensman led off with a single up the middle, advanced to second on a passed ball, went to third on a fly ball and scored on an infield grounder off the bat of Kyle Pusateri. North Central tied the game, 1-1, in the fifth. The Cardinals loaded the bases on two walks and a single, the first hit off pitcher Andrew Arenson, and Luke Waldier scored on a grounder by Steve Hlavac. Carthage took a 2-1 lead in the sixth when Tyler Eickmeyer scored from third on a two-out fielding error by Cardinals shortstop Alex Khoury.
North Central re-gained the lead, 3-2, with two runs in the seventh. Joe Paparone hit a sacrifice fly, and Hlavac hit an RBI-single. Drew Bailey's screaming, RBI-double down the leftfield line in the bottom half tied the game, 3-3. The Red Men took the lead, 5-3, in the eighth on an RBI-double by Kyle Pusateri and a run-scoring single by Chris D'Angelo. Red Men pitcher Andrew Arenson (So., Naperville, Ill./North) worked the first six innings and allowed one run on one hit and five walks. Mitch Lochen (Jr., Glenview, Ill./Glenbrook South, 1-0) picked up the win despite giving up two runs on five hits and a walk over the final three innings. Tanner Wensman and Chris D'Angelo each had two hits for Carthage. Steve Lemm (0-1), the second-of-two Cardinal pitchers, took the loss.
"We had good enough pitching to win both games in Naperville on Saturday," said Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV, "but we made so many mistakes, we shot ourselves in the foot. We kind of did the same thing on Sunday, even though we won the game. Andrew Arenson pitched really well, but we made some big mistakes and big errors. We're not clicking on all cylinders right now. We're fighting ourselves, and it's almost like we're playing not to lose, instead of just playing baseball. We're waiting for something bad to happen, and I don't know how it started. I think it all started with the snow storm in Tucson—since then, nothing has gone right. We have to get that straightened out, because we have one tough schedule ahead of us. This one was big, but it only means something if we get something done at North Park, who's supposedly the best team in the conference."
Carthage travels to Chicago on Tuesday, April 3 to play CCIW-opponent and No. 26 North Park University (17-3, 3-0 CCIW) in a crucial, 1 p.m. doubleheader at the Holmgren Athletic Complex.