Naperville, Ill. – The second-seeded Thunder baseball team dropped a 7-1 decision to third-seed Illinois Wesleyan on Thursday afternoon in the opening round of the 2015 CCIW Baseball Tournament. Wheaton (21-20) will face top-seeded North Central at 9:30 a.m. on Friday at Zimmerman Stadium in Naperville in the first elimination game of the double-elimination tournament. The winner of Friday morning's game between Wheaton and the Cardinals will face either Illinois Wesleyan or Carthage at 3:30 p.m. in the second elimination game of the event.

In today's game Illinois Wesleyan scored seven runs, on 13 hits, with no errors and Wheaton tallied one run, on seven hits, with four errors. Thunder starting pitcher Peter Moran (3-1) worked 6-2/3 innings and allowed six runs, all unearned, on seven hits, with one walk and three strikeouts.  Reliever Josh Arevalo pitched one third of an inning, with no runs and one hit allowed. Casey Balikian worked two innings of relief, allowing one run, on five hits, with two strikeouts.

Matt Schappell was 2-for-4 for the Thunder. Kyle Mellinger, Matt Krause, Peter Newman, Tyler Sigler and Kyle Trivits each added a single for the 'Orange and Blue'.

Schappell led off the bottom of the first inning for the Thunder with a single and IWU starting pitcher Matt Hart held the Thunder hitless over the next  4-2/3 innings as he collected outs from 15 consecutive Thunder batters. Sigler broke Wheaton's hitless streak with two outs in the bottom of the fifth inning and then he stole second base, but was stranded at second at the conclusion of the inning.  

Illinois Wesleyan's Nick Huskisson reached base on an error as the Titans' leadoff batter in the top of the sixth inning and he scored as an unearned run three batters later on a sacrifice fly to give IWU a 1-0 lead. The Titans added five unearned runs in the top of the seventh inning to gain a 6-0 advantage.

Kyle Mellinger, the leadoff batter for the Thunder in the bottom of the seventh, was hit by a pitch and scored two batters later on a RBI-single by Matt Krause as Wheaton cut the Titans' lead to 6-1. The Titans added a run in the top of the eighth inning to increase the IWU lead to 7-1.

Livestats of all games this weekend will be at http://sidearmstats.com/ncc/baseball and audio of all Wheaton games is available at http://portal.stretchinternet.com/wheaton.