Bloomington, Ill. -- What is the best remedy coming off of a doubleheader defeat? As the Wheaton baseball team proved on Monday night, it's a run-rule victory on the road in your very next game. The Thunder traveled south to face Illinois Wesleyan looking to get back to winning ways, and the visitors did just that in swashbuckling fashion, blowing past the Titans, 15-4, on their home field.
Joe Klein fired off two home runs, including the first grand slam of the Thunder's season, and
Brendan Dyer picked up another win on the mound, as Wheaton led wire-to-wire in Monday's meeting. With tonight's result, the team improves to 4-3 in conference play and collects their second notable road win in the space of a week.
Illinois Wesleyan came into this matchup with the best batting average in the CCIW and the fifth-highest mark in all of Division III, but those figures failed to intimidate the Thunder. Wheaton gave up no hits and no runs while allowing only three Titans batters to reach base through the first four innings in a smothering defensive display. Equally impressive was the visitors' batting performance. Playing like they were the team leading the conference in batting average, the Thunder shook off a slow start to take a 1-0 lead through the first of
Joe Klein's two homers in the second inning, before expanding the advantage to five in the next frame via Klein's grand slam. After two singles and a walk for
Harrison Stanton,
Ben Weaver, and
Graham Core, Klein stepped up and launched the ball over the wall in right center to blow the game wide open and put Wheaton in control. A succession of single RBIs in the fourth inning pushed the visitors' lead to 9-0, and from that point on, the end result was merely a formality. The sixth inning saw the most scoring action, as the two teams combined for eight runs, but Wheaton held a ten-run edge heading into the seventh frame and blanked Illinois Wesleyan in the bottom half to send the fans home early.
Joe Klein had himself a day in the batter's box, as the junior posted three hits, four runs, two home runs, and a whopping six RBIs in three at-bats to lead the Wheaton offense.
Harrison Stanton and
Ben Weaver each registered a pair of hits, two runs, and one RBI.
Kyle Wu tallied two RBIs from two hits and scored one run.
Graham Core was right behind with two runs of his own to go with one hit and one RBI.
Zach Ledbetter and
Matthias Haggerty both picked up a run and a hit.
Mason Diel collected one run and one RBI, while
Tyler Weiner earned one hit and one RBI.
Josh Ledbetter scored one run as a pinch hitter.
Brendan Dyer maintained his perfect record for Wheaton this season, moving to 3-0 with tonight's win. The junior tossed three strikeouts and allowed just two hits in his 5.1 innings on the mound.
David Solfelt replaced him in the sixth frame and helped see out the abbreviated victory, throwing one strikeout and not allowing any runs after the initial round. As the final score would suggest, Wheaton enjoyed a significant advantage in hits, posting 13 to IWU's five. Both teams committed two errors across the seven innings.
The only downside to tonight's impressive win for the Thunder is the shortage of time to enjoy it before their next outing. Tomorrow evening has Wheaton hosting IIT in a nonconference game, before seeing the Titans again on Wednesday at Lee Pfund Stadium.
