GAME STATS O'Fallon, Ill. - The Wheaton baseball team wrapped up an undefeated opening weekend on Saturday afternoon with a 5-3 victory over Greenville University. Wheaton will embark on its annual spring break trip next weekend with a 3-0 record after dropping the Panthers to 0-6-1 on the young season.

David Solfelt earned the win on the mound for the Thunder, striking out eight Panther hitters over five innings while scattering just two hits. Sam Arnold worked 2.2 innings of relief, allowing three runs with just one earned. Jacob Garrity earned the first save of the season with 1.1 innings of relief. The Thunder offense tagged Greenville starter Sam Alender for five runs in six innings of work.

The Thunder went to work right away with Brett Albaugh tagging the first pitch of the game for a double to right-center field. Graham Core followed with a single and Joel Pierce was hit by a pitch to load the bases before Sam Reichert continue his torrid start to the season with his third double of the season, driving in two runs for an early lead.

Reichert drove in another run with a groundout in the top of the third inning, plating Graham Core who had led off the inning with a single and stole second. Ben Weaver's two-run double down the right field line gave Wheaton some breathing room in the top of the fifth inning, staking Solfelt to a 5-0 lead. The Thunder sophomore worked around a hit and an error in the bottom half of the inning but slammed the door on the rally with a strikeout to end the inning.

A seventh inning sacrifice fly got the Panthers on the scoreboard in the bottom of the seventh inning, but the Thunder defense opened the door for Greenville to close the gap in the bottom of the seventh inning. A leadoff error and an infield single set the Panthers up to start the inning. Both runs would come around to score and Greenville had the tying runs on base when Jacob Garrity entered the game with two outs, but Garrity slammed the door with an emphatic strikeout to end the inning and followed with a clean ninth inning of work to earn the save.

Core and Reichert led the Thunder attack that tallied nine hits on the day with two hits apiece. Reichert drove in three runs with Core scoring twice. Wheaton will open its trip to Tucson, Arizona, on Saturday, March 7 with a doubleheader against Marian (Wis.).