The Carthage College baseball team (1-5, 0-0 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin) went to 0-4 at the Tucson Invitational on Sunday, March 20 with a 9-8 loss in 10 innings to Luther College (5-0) at the Kino Sports Complex in Tucson, Ariz. The four-game losing streak to start a spring trip is the second-longest in coach Augie Schmidt IV's career, with the 1988 team, his first year coaching, losing its first five in Mississippi before winning a game.
In the loss the Luther, Carthage starting pitcher Tim Sulik had a rough first inning but managed to escape with only one run charged to him. Sulik plunked leadoff batter Alex Weber in the arm on the game's first pitch. Weber moved to third on a failed pickoff attempt and eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Mitch Knippenberg. Before the inning ended, however, Sulik hit another batter and uncorked a pair of wild pitches. Sulik settled down, and the Red Men took a 3-1 lead in the third on a sacrifice fly by Luc DiMaso and RBI-singles by Jared Helmich and Reed Hero. The Norse got a run back in the bottom of the third to cut the Carthage lead to 3-2. Luther tied the game, 3-3, in the sixth on a squeeze bunt by Ryan Vijums, scoring Cody Reimer from third.
The Norse went back up, 5-3, in the seventh on an RBI-double off the leftfield fence by Knippenberg, followed by a run-scoring single by Reimer. The Red Men knotted the game for the second time in the eighth, 5-5, on a two-out, two-run single by A.J. Kaprelian. Carthage took an 8-5 lead in the top of the ninth, scoring three times with two outs. Myles Farley scored the go-ahead run from second base on a Jared Helmich grounder. Luther shortstop Joe Silversmith picked the ball cleanly but bounced the throw to first for a throwing error. After Hero walked, Zach Wade delivered a two-run triple.
Luther scored three times in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game. With two outs, Zach Hendrikson doubled to the deepest part of centerfield to make it 8-6 with runners on second and third. Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV summoned reliever Chris Pedrak to face Reimer, who delivered an RBI-single behind the third base bag to make it 8-7 with runners at the corners. The next batter, Czenvic Rojer, singled to right to tie the game, 8-8, and sending it into extra innings.
The Red Men put two runners on base in the top of the 10th but failed to score. In the Luther half of the inning, Jake Halvorson led off with a base on balls from Carthage reliever C.J. Casey. A sacrifice bunt moved Halvorson to second, a balk from Casey sent him to third, and Halvorson gave the Norse the 9-8 win by scoring the game-winning run on a single up the middle from Jon Opdahl. "The balk on C.J. Casey sort changed the complexion of the 10th inning," said Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV.
Collin Nimrod (1-0), the fifth-of-five Luther hurlers, picked up the win by pitching a scoreless 10th inning. Carthage starter Tim Sulik went six innings and allowed three runs, two earned, on five hits and two walks. Tucker Maris followed in the seventh inning, Collin Dressen in the eighth, Chris Pedrak in the ninth and C.J. Casey (0-2) in the 10th. Cody Reimer had four hits and three RBI for Luther, and Zach Wade went two-for-five with two RBI for the Red Men.
"It was a great game" said Schmidt, "but it seemed like we couldn't make that one pitch or get the one hit when we had to have it. It's frustrating, because we had the game won and were one pitch from finishing it, and we just couldn't make that pitch. Tim Sulik got off to rough start and hit two guys, and then his pitch count got too high, which put a lot of pressure on backend pitching, which didn't get the job done again today. We need our starters to get further into the game."
Carthage has a tough day on Monday, March 21, taking on Buena Vista University at 11 a.m. (all times MST) and NAIA Hastings College (Neb.) at 3 p.m. "We're in a funk right now, admitted Schmidt, "where anything that can go wrong goes wrong. We're not getting a lot of breaks, and we need to make our own. We're having a really tough time right now—everything is hard. I don't think it matters who we play right at the moment. We just need to play better baseball, and maybe something good will happen"