By Steve Marovich, Athletics Staff Writer/2022 Baseball Contact
The Carthage College baseball team (4-9) lost to Augsburg University (7-5), 9-2, on Friday, March 18 at the Kino Sports Complex in Tucson, Ariz.
Augsburg took a 1-0 lead in the opening inning on an RBI-single by Jack Baumgart. Carthage tied the game in the second on a sacrifice fly by Matt Felber and took a 2-1 lead in the third on a fielder's choice-RBI off the bat of Austin Prybylinski.
The Auggies went up, 3-2, in the fourth. Baumgart singled in the first run and subsequently scored on the front end of a double play.
Starting pitcher Bryce Schaum worked the first six innings for Carthage and only surrendered three runs on five hits before giving way to James Lindenmuth to start the seventh inning. That's when things got out of hand for the Firebirds. Lindenmuth got the leadoff batter on a fly ball, but Clint Mattison doubled and scored on Connor Stoik's triple. With two outs, Lindenmuth walked Baumgart, and Carson Tomony singled in Stoik. Steven Salz then delivered a two-run triple and scored on the play when Austin Prybylinski threw away the relay throw from left field. Augsburg led at that point, 8-2.
The Auggies scored their final run in the eighth inning on an RBI-single by Stoik. Carthage, meanwhile, went out in order in the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth innings, striking out five times over the final four frames.
Jake Skogrand (1-1) was the winning pitcher for Augsburg and allowed just two runs on seven hits, a walk and five strikeouts over seven innings. Cam Fischer blanked the Firebirds over the final two innings with three strikeouts to earn his first save. Bryce Schaum (0-1) took the loss by giving up the first three runs, two earned, on five hits, four walks and eight strikeouts. Carthage's Cody Tostrud went three-for-four.
"Defensively, the wheels fell off for us," admitted Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV. "Starting pitcher Bryce Schaum pitched really, really well, but the next guy didn't do so well. It was a good ball game until the wheels fell off in the seventh inning. We have a tendency to take bad defense to the plate with us, and we kind of went silent the last four innings. We did hit some balls really hard and really far, but in the dry Arizona air, a lot of those are just fly balls at the fence."
The Firebirds conclude their eight-day, seven-game trip to the Tucson Invitational on Saturday with an 11 a.m., CDT game against Gustavus Adolphus College (7-2).