The Carthage College baseball team (6-9, 1-4 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin) lost both ends of a Tuesday, April 3 doubleheader to CCIW-opponent and No. 20 North Park University (19-3, 5-0 CCIW), 9-0 and 9-6, at the Holmgren Athletic Complex in Chicago. North Park leads the league with its 5-0 mark, and Carthage falls to sixth-place tie with Wheaton College (Ill.). It was North Park's first sweep of a Carthage doubleheader in 23 years since April 15, 1989, coach Augie Schmidt IV's second season.
North Park broke a scoreless tie in the first game with a three-run fourth inning. Mike Coduto hit an RBI-single and Matt Rice drove in a run with a ground ball. Coduto later scored on a what should have been an inning-ending strike out of Zak Worsley, but Carthage catcher Mike Wasche threw the ball away on the throw to first. The Vikings made it 8-0 in the fifth on an RBI-single by Kyle Williams, followed by play with a passed ball and throwing error by pitcher Jeremy Salzman that allowed two runners to score with two outs. That misplay proved even more costly when Worsley followed with a two-run single. North Park made it a 9-0 game in the sixth when Brad Medina walked, advanced two bases on a wild pitch and scored on a single by Williams. The Red Men managed only four hits off three Viking pitchers. Alex Boyer (1-0) was the winner, and he allowed just two hits and four walks over the first five innings. Carthage starter Alex Newberry (1-1) allowed four runs, three earned on seven hits, no walks and seven strikeouts over four and one-third innings. Jeremy; Salzman and Andy Pucher finishing up.
Carthage took a 2-0 lead in the opening inning of the second game with Zach Kozlowski and Kyle Pusateri driving in runs. Tyler Eickmeyer's RBI-single in the second gave the Red Men a 3-0 lead. The Vikings came back to the tie the game, 3-3, in the bottom of the second on two singles, two hits batters and an infield error. Carthage re-gained the lead, 5-3, in the third on a sacrifice fly by Tanner Wensman and an RBI-single by Drew Bailey. North Park re-tied the contest, 5-5, in the bottom half on an RBI-triple by Tony Sanchez and RBI-grounder by Brad Medina. The Vikings took an 8-5 lead in the bottom of the fifth, scoring three runs on four hits. North Park scored a run in the eighth to make it 9-5, and Carthage scored in the ninth for final, 9-6 margin.
Wee Mleziva (4-0), the first of three Viking pitcher, picked up the win, despite surrendering five runs on nine hits. Sam Wilhelms (1-1), the second-of-three Red Men hurlers was pinned with the loss. Wilhelms pitched the fifth, sixth and seventh frames and gave up three runs on five hits. Jon Kleinmeyer started the game and surrendered the first five runs, three earned, on four hits and a walk over four innings. Tyler Eickmeyer and Kyle Pusateri each went three-for-five, as Carthage collected 14 hits.
"The first game, we played really bad baseball," admitted coach Augie Schmidt IV. "We made every mistake known to man, a lot of it mental. I'm baffled by all of this. We battled hard in the second game, but our pitchers hit and walked too many guys. North Park has a nice team, but I'm not ready to concede anything to them just yet. They dive for balls, fight for walks and do whatever it takes to win. It was a really crappy day for us. We don't have any answers right now. We have one more crack at them next week. We're in an unusual spot in the standings right now, and this will be a real test for us. We dug this hole, and we'll have to find a way out of it."
On Friday-Saturday, April 6-7, the Red Men play host to conference-opponent and No. 37 Augustana College (Ill.) in a three-game series at the Carthage Baseball Field in Kenosha, Wis. The two teams play Friday, April 6 doubleheader at 1 p.m., followed by a Noon single game on Saturday, April 7.