The Carthage College baseball team (36-10, 17-4 CCIW), ranked 10th in the May 13 “D3baseball.com” poll, was eliminated from the NCAA Division III Midwest Regional Championship on Friday, May 16 with a 9-4 loss to No. 22 the College of St. Scholastica (34-5) at E.J. Schneider Field in Oshkosh, Wis. Earlier on Friday, No. 11 Wisconsin-Whitewater (38-8) won the battle of the undefeated teams with a 4-1 win over No. 9 St. Thomas (Minn., 33-8). Following its win over Carthage on Friday, St. Scholastica eliminated St. Thomas (Minn,.) by a 7-1 margin. The Saints will play Wisconsin-Whitewater in the Saturday, May 17 championship round.
On Thursday, May 15, Carthage lost to Wisconsin-Whitewater (37-8), 24-3; St. Scholastica eliminated Knox College (15-25), 15-7; and St. Thomas (Minn.) eliminated No. 16 Wisconsin-Oshkosh (29-11), 3-1. In first-round games on Thursday, May 14, Carthage defeated Wisconsin-Oshkosh, 6-3; St. Thomas (Minn.) pounded Knox, 15-1; and Wisconsin-Whitewater defeated St. Scholastica by a 7-4 margin.
In the Red Men’s loss to St. Scholastica, the Saints took a 3-0 lead in the first inning off Carthage starting pitcher Mario Perez, thanks to a two-out, two-run home run by Darrin Carlson. St. Scholastica put the next two runners on, and Joey Link delivered an RBI-single for the third run. The score stayed right there until the fourth when the Saints scored twice to take a 5-0 lead. Mike Lewis singled in the first run of the inning, and Steve Gerten followed with an RBI-double. Corey Richardson took over for Perez in the bottom of fifth. Perez (7-1) allowed five runs on 11 hits, nine of those singles, and two walks over four innings. St. Scholastica scored an unearned run in the fifth when Red Men leftfielder David Hermes misjudged a fly ball off the bat of Steve Kraushaar, allowing Kyle Wojtysiak to score all the way from first. Sean Claugherty followed with an RBI-double to score Kraushaar from second for a 7-0 margin.
The Red Men finally got on the scoreboard in the sixth on a pinch-hit, two-run homer by Will Hodges to make it a 7-2 game. Grant Eller’s solo homer in the seventh upped the Saints’ lead to 8-2, and Gerten’s RBI-single in the eight made it 9-2. Carthage made a little noise in the ninth, as Seth Romano singled in two runs to cut the lead to 9-4, but Steve Coughlin hit into a game-ending double play. Adian Kummet (8-2) was the winning pitcher for St. Scholastica. Kummet went the distance and allowed four runs, three earned, on 11 hits and three walks.