Naperville, Ill. – Augustana defeated the Wheaton baseball team 3-2 on Thursday in the opening round of the 2017 CCIW Baseball Tournament. Wheaton (24-17) will face Illinois Wesleyan (21-18) on Friday at 9:30 a.m. in an elimination game. Illinois Wesleyan lost to North Central 11-10 in an opening round game on Thursday on a walk-off hit by NCC.

Wheaton outhit Augustana 13-7 but three errors proved costly in the tournament opener for both teams. Augustana made one defensive miscue.

Wheaton jumped to an early lead in the top of the first inning when Nick Mailman led off the game with a single ahead of a walk to Jacob Zeller. Mailman stole third base and came in to score on Brett Albaugh's sacrifice fly. Wheaton added a run in the top of the fifth inning when Seth Meyer scored on an RBI single by Kyle Trivits to put Wheaton ahead 2-0.

Michael McCraith held the Vikings in check through five innings before the Vikings rallied for two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning on a two-out single by Cayton Wallace. McCraith would go 6.2 innings and scattered five hits with five strikeouts. McCraith gave way to John Schmitz in the bottom of the seventh inning and Schmitz answered by stranding the bases loaded to send the game tied at 2-2 into the eighth inning.

Wheaton loaded the bases in the top of the eighth on a walk and consecutive singles by Albaugh and Johnny Peltz but could not come up with the hit to break the tie. Wheaton stranded a runner  in scoring position in the top of the 10th inning and again in the top of the 12th inning but could not break through. Augustana took advantage of a Thunder error in the bottom of the 12th inning to push across the winning run on a bloop single to left field to earn the 3-2 victory.

Johnny Peltz led the Thunder offense with three hits including a double and a stolen base. Nick Mailman, Brett Albaugh and Seth Meyer each added two hits.