Carol Stream, Ill. - The Thunder baseball team dropped a pair of games against Illinois Wesleyan University on Saturday afternoon at Lee Pfund Stadium. The Titans used a late rally in game one to push the game into extra innings where the visitors secured an 11-9 victory in 11 innings. Illinois Wesleyan rolled the momentum from the early win into game two and pushed out to an early lead en route to a 5-2 victory. The Titans improve to 9-6 overall and 4-3 in the CCIW with the doubleheader sweep. Wheaton falls to 5-6 overall and 3-2 in the CCIW. Wheaton will return to Lee Pfund Stadium on Tuesday night for a 5 pm first pitch against Millikin University.

Trailing 3-0 after the first half inning, Wheaton turned game one on its head in the bottom of the fourth inning when the Thunder pulled even with a three-run inning of their own. Sam Reichert's double to left drove home Joe Klein with the first run of the inning. Two batters later Reichert scored on a sacrifice fly by Joel Pierce. Cale Lewis followed with an RBI double to left-center scoring Mason Packwood from first base to tie the score at 3-3.

Wheaton used plate disciple to take the lead in the bottom of the fifth inning, taking three-straight walks to open the inning and forcing the Titans deeper into their bullpen. Two batters later, Reicert struck another big blow with a ground-rule double to left field to put Wheaton ahead 5-3. After a second strikeout, Illinois Wesleyan had a chance to get out of the inning without further damage but two infielders collided on a routine pop fly to allow a run to score. Lewis drove in another run with a single to left and Matthias Haggerty capped the inning with an RBI single to put the Thunder ahead 8-3 after five innings.

Both teams tallied two-out runs in the sixth inning with Packwood painting the foul line with a triple into the right field corner to score Reichert from first and push the lead back to five runs at 9-4 after six innings. Illinois Wesleyan continued its trend of two-out damage in the top of the seventh innings, striking for four runs with two outs to pull within a run at 9-8, but Alex Hanvey prevented further scoring by stranding two Titans on base to end the inning.

Wheaton positioned itself well for another answer in the bottom of the seventh after a one-out triple by Noah Yi and an intentional walk to Haggerty put runners on the corners with one out. The Thunder rally would come up empty though after Haggerty was thrown out trying to steal second base and Yi was cut down at the plate two pitchers later trying to score on wild pitch.

Dominic DiLello led off the top of the eighth for the Titans with a towering home run to left to tie the score at 9-9 and both teams would go on to leave runners in scoring position with a chance to take the lead as the game moved into the ninth inning. Hanvey worked his way out of a bases loaded jam in the top of the ninth and neither team threatened against until the Titans rallied with two outs in the top of the 11th inning using a two-out walk, double and a two-strike single by DiLello to take an 11-9 lead. Wheaton was able to get the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the 11th but could not cut into the Titan lead to fall 11-9.

Reichert led the Thunder attack in the lidlifter by scoring three runs and driving in three runs on a pair of doubles. Mason Packwood and Cale Lewis also tallied multi-hit games with Lewis driving in two runs. Kevin Champlin took the tough-luck no decision after throwing 6.1 innings of work and allowing five runs on seven hits with five strikeouts. The Thunder bullpen was tagged for six runs in 4.2 innings of work with four of five relievers surrendering runs.

The Titans kept their offense rolling to start game two, pushing across an unearned run in the top of the first and adding three more runs in the top of the second inning to lead 4-0. Wheaton got on the board with a run in the bottom of the third inning when Graham Core's groundout brought home Yi to cut the lead to 4-1. Thunder starter Jacob Garrity settled in after the rough start, stranding the bases loaded in the fifth inning on his way to a seven-inning outing, allowing just three earned runs on six hits with five strikeouts.

Illinois Wesleyan tacked on an insurance run in the top of the eighth inning to lead 5-1, but Wheaton would not go quietly. An error and two singles, the second an RBI hit by Lewis cut the lead to 5-2 and brought the tying run to the plate with no outs in the inning. As he did throughout the afternoon, Titan starter Hunter Simon worked out of the jam with no more scoring, finishing the complete game effort with nine hits allowed and nine strikeouts.

Lewis and Packwood tallied another multi-hit game in the nightcap with Lewis driving in two runs on three hits. Noah Yi also had two hits and a run scored.