PICTURED ABOVE: Nick Mailman posted five hits in seven at-bats and two walks in Wheaton's doubleheader split at Elmhurst on Saturday.

Elmhurst, Ill. - The Thunder baseball team used a six-run tenth inning to pull out a doubleheader split at Elmhurst College on Saturday afternoon. Wheaton dropped the opener 11-1 in seven innings before earning the 9-3 ten-inning victory in the nightcap. Wheaton drops the series to fall to 18-11 overall and 7-5 in conference play. Elmhurst improves to 16-12 and 5-7 in the CCIW. Wheaton will Dominican University in a nonconference game on Tuesday night at Alexian Field in Schaumburg before kicking off a key CCIW series with North Central at Lee Pfund Stadium on Friday night.

After only managing a first-inning RBI single by Ben Brittain in the first game, Wheaton struck again in the top of the first inning of game two on Saturday when Nick Mailman led off the game with a ground-rule double to right field. Mailman moved to third base on a groundout by Jon metz and scored on Brittain's groundout. Wheaton's 1-0 lead would hold until the bottom of the fourth inning when the Bluejays tallied to even the game at 1-1 where it would stay through the sixth inning.

Graham True's one-out walk started a Thunder rally in teh top of the seventh inning. True would be replaced by pinch runner Josh Kimmel who moved to second on Mailman's single to left. Kimmel and Mailman would move into scoring position on a double steal and both would come in to score on a single to right field by Brittain to give Wheaton a 3-1 lead.

In control through six innings, the Bluejays finally got to Thunder starter Christian Bolhuis in the bottom of the sixth inning when consecutive two-out doubles chased him from the game and knotted the score at 3-3. Neither team threatened in the final two innings before Wheaton broke the game open in the top of the tenth inning with the help of five Elmhurst walks. Wheaton took the lead when JD Carpenter drew a bases loaded walk. An errant pickoff attempt brought home Jacob Zeller to make it 5-3 before a two-run single by Mailman pushed the lead to four runs. Metz plated the last two runs with an RBI single and a throwing error that allowed an extra run to score making it 9-3.

Junior reliever Nick Johnson earned the win for Wheaton, allowing just two hits and striking out three in 3.1 innings of work. Bolhuis ultimately surrendered three runs on nine hits with four strikeouts over 6.2 innings.