The Carthage College baseball team (17-22, 7-16) ended its 2019 season on Saturday, May 4 by splitting a doubleheader with College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin-opponent Illinois Wesleyan University (21-16, 14-9) at Horenberger Field in Bloomington, Ill. Illinois Wesleyan won the first game, 6-2, but Carthage took the nightcap by a 6-0 margin. The two teams opened the three-game series on Friday night, May 3, with the Titans winning a 4-0 contest.
Illinois Wesleyan took a 1-0 lead in the first inning of the opener. Carthage tied the game, 1-1, in the third inning of the opener, scoring a run on the front end of a double play. The Red Men made it 2-1 in the fifth on an RBI-single by Jake Snider. The Titans' Garrett Shea doubled in a run in the seventh to tie the game, 2-2.
In the Illinois Wesleyan eighth, Carthage relief pitcher Chance Roach walked the first two batters. The next batter, John Bosco, bunted to first baseman Vince Schwartz, who threw to third base for the force. Umpire Jay Wiechmann called the runner safe to load the bases, which opened the floodgates. The Titans proceeded to score four times to take a 6-2 lead to close out the scoring.
Pitcher Quinn Gudaitis (6-1) went the distance for the Titans and limited the Red Men to a pair of runs, one earned, on seven hits, two walks and 11 strikeouts. The loss went to Chance Roach (3-3). Ricky Bergstrom and Jake Snider had two each apiece for Carthage.
The nightcap was delayed 21 minutes in the top of the second inning when home plate umpire Jay Wiechmann fell ill and left the game. Infield umpire Chad Ozee moved behind the plate, and Matt Youkhanna took over on the bases. When play resumed, Johnny Belskis and Ben Levicki hit back-to-back doubles scoring one run, with Levicki subsequently scoring on an infield error for a 2-0 Carthage lead.
The Red Men made it 3-0 in the third when Ryan Kramer scored from third on a passed ball. A sacrifice fly by Vince Schwartz in the seventh gave Carthage a 4-0 edge. The Red Men upped their lead to 6-0 in the eighth on a two-run single by Ryan Kramer.
Carthage pitcher Pasquale Atteo (3-0) pitched well and blanked the Titans on nine hits and a walk over six and one-third innings. Chance Roach blanked the Titans over the final two and two-thirds innings to earn his second save. "Chance Roach pitched great in the second game after struggling in the first one," said Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV. "He's a gutsy kid, and he's going to pitch a lot for us." Ben Manski (0-1), the first-of-10 Illinois Wesleyan hurlers, took the loss. Ryan Kramer went three-for-four with two RBI for the Red Men.
"We could make a lot of excuses about this season," said Schmidt, "but we didn't win the close games. We led four or five games this year with one out to get, and we lost all of those. You turn those games around, and you're talking a whole different story for 2019. Our pitching struggled early, but I think now we're pitching pretty well, and it's more like we thought it would be. For some reason, we got into a bad mode, couldn't throw strikes and walked too many guys. You can't give good teams so many extra outs, and we did that consistently. It was an uphill battle the entire season. It felt like we were always struggling."
"We're already looking forward to next year," concluded Schmidt. "We get all our injured guys back, and we only lose three seniors. We feel like we've added a few pieces of the puzzle over the past few weeks. Jacob Delabio is throwing the ball great right now. Pasquale Atteo and Dante Guarascio are also throwing the ball great, Matt Willett has been pretty consistent, and there's help on the way. We're not losing a lot, and we're excited about next year. A lot of good things happened this year. If we could have played eight inning all year, instead of nine, we'd be getting ready for tournament baseball right now."