The Carthage College baseball team (10-13, 5-6 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin) completed a three-game sweep of CCIW-opponent Millikin University (7-15, 1-11 CCIW) on Sunday, April 14 with a 6-0 win at Augie Schmidt Field in Kenosha, Wis. The Red Men swept a Saturday, April 13 doubleheader from the Big Blue, 9-1 and 7-3. The series sweep leaves Carthage in a virtual tie for fourth place in the league, with the top-four teams qualifying for the CCIW Baseball Tournament.
Carthage broke a scoreless battle with a two-run fourth inning. After Nick Schmidlkofer and Kyle Pusateri led off with singles, a ground ball to first base off the bat of Marc Mantucca scored Schmidlkofer from third base. Two batters later, a Mike Merritt singled scored Pusateri. The Red Men made it 3-0 in the fifth, scoring a run on the front end of a double play. The Red Men doubled up the score to 6-0 with a three-run eighth innings. Marc Mantucca's double off the leftfield fence in the eighth scored Schmidlkofer from second, and Stevo Kraynak followed with a two-run single.
Starting pitcher Marc Mantucca (Jr., Naperville, Ill./Central, 1-2) twirled a gem to pick up his first win of the season. Mantucca scatter seven singles and a walk over nine innings and struck out four batters. Kyle Davidson (0-2) took the loss. Mantucca also helped his own cause by going two-for-four with two RBI. Nick Schmidlkofer and Mike Merritt also went two-for-four.
"Sweeping this series was big," said Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV, "because it at least puts us in a position to get into the playoff-picture if we can play good baseball. We have some tough, tough games coming up, including Illinois Wesleyan, who's running away with the race. We're at least in a spot where, if we do well, we can finish in the top-four. You have to win games when you can in this league. We got swept at Augustana last weekend, and that shouldn't have happened. Marc Mantucca pitched great today, and he's hitting in cleanup spot. He's big part of this team. This series came at the right time. We needed something like this, and hopefully, it will give us some momentum and some confidence. We've hung around games all year and found a way to love—maybe now we can find a way to win. This is a big week coming up, and this should be fun."
Carthage travels to Chicago on Monday, April 15 to play conference-opponent North Park University in a 3 p.m. game at the Holmgren Athletic Complex. The contest with the Vikings is a makeup from a game rained out on April 10.