By Steve Marovich, Part-Time Assistant to the Carthage Director of Athletic Communications

Seven hits and six walks allowed in the first six and one-third innings were too much for the Carthage College baseball team (2-1) to overcome on Monday, as the Red Men fell to Wabash College (2-4), 11-6, in Tucson, Ariz. 

The loss snapped an eight-game Red Men winning streak at the Tucson Invitational that stretched back to the final six games of last year's trip.  Wabash received 13 votes in the Feb. 25 "D3Baseball.com" Top-25 poll and was one of 28 teams "also receiving votes."

The Little Giants took a 2-0 lead in the top of the second inning off Carthage starting pitcher Jacob Delabio.  Canton Terry scored from third on a wild pitch, and Chase Clarkson drove in the second run with a single.  The Red Men knotted the game at 2-2 in the bottom half on a sacrifice fly by Ricky Bergstrom and an RBI-single by Colton Klein. 

Wabash used a four-run outburst in the third to go up, 6-2.  The Little Giants scored on an RBI-triple by Matthew Annee, an RBI-single by Eric Chavez to score Annee, followed by a two-run triple by Erich Lange.

Carthage got all four runs back in the bottom of the fourth.  Klein connected on a three-run homer, his first of the year, and Myles Farley tied the game, 6-6, on a fielder's choice RBI.  In the Wabash fifth, Delabio surrendered a double and walk before giving way to reliever Clark Hendricks.  Hendricks walked his first batter, and one out later, Sean Roginski doubled in a pair of runs to put the Little Giants up by two, 8-6.  Wabash tacked on a run the seventh off Hendricks to make it 9-6, as Aiden Earl relieved Hendricks in the inning.  Earl surrendered two runs in the eighth to give the Little Giants an 11-6 spread that closed out the scoring  Joe Atkins pitched a scoreless ninth inning for the Red Men.

Tyler Dearing (1-0), in relief of Dylan Scheid, was the winning pitcher.  Dearing blanked the Red Men on two hits and three walks over the final four and two-thirds innings.  Carthage starter Delabio (0-1) took the loss and gave up eight runs, five earned, on six hits, four walks and six strikeouts over four and one-third innings.  For the Red Men, Klein went two-for-five with a home run and four RBI and is hitting .563 on the trip (nine-for-16).  Vince Schwartz went three-for-five with a double.

"We didn't play very," admitted Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV.  "In fact, we had a miserable day with a lot of errors and a lot of walks, and they took advantage of every mistake.  Even though we came back and tied the game, we just didn't play well."