Waukesha, Wis. -- After splitting their home doubleheader against the Carroll Pioneers on Friday, the Thunder baseball team took the short trip north for Saturday's decisive rubber match. The game lived up to the billing as a matchup of two teams near the top of the conference standings, but the hosts eventually emerged victorious by a nail-biting margin of 11-10. Today's narrow road defeat drops Wheaton's record to 12-11 overall and 4-3 in CCIW action.
The Thunder made a statement in their first batting series of the afternoon, tallying six runs to jump out to a sizable lead.
Harrison Stanton fired off a lead-off triple to set the tone, before
Matthias Haggerty followed suit with one of his own to bring Stanton and
Kyle Wu in to score.
Joe Klein brought Haggerty across home plate with an RBI single, before
Mason Diel launched a two-run homer to push the advantage to five runs. A sacrifice fly allowed
Jacob Snyder to tally Wheaton's sixth and final score of the first inning. Unfortunately for the visitors, Carroll took advantage of a passed ball and wild pitch combination in the bottom half to quickly halve the deficit.
Another RBI triple from Haggerty in the second inning helped Wheaton pick up where they left off, but three more runs by the Pioneers nearly extinguished the Thunder's early lead. Continuing the offense-heavy theme of the day, Wheaton notched two more runs in the third frame thanks to a wild pitch and a
Ben Weaver RBI double down the right field line. But the guests' lead disappeared for good in the bottom of the third inning, as Carroll registered their third-straight three-run series to tie the contest at nine runs apiece. The next 2.5 innings were scoreless as both sides' bats started to go cold, but the home team picked up a crucial tenth run in the bottom of the sixth via an RBI single to edge ahead by one run.
The Thunder hit the ball twice in the seventh frame and tied the game at 10-10 courtesy of a Haggerty single that brought
Larken Lancaster across the pentagon. Two scoreless batting series followed and extra innings loomed, but Carroll notched the all-important winning score in the bottom of the eighth when their first baseman hit a one-run homer. Wheaton had one more chance to stay alive in the weekend series in the top of the ninth inning, but their first three batters all struck out and the Pioneers held on for a vital CCIW victory.
The even nature of the contest was reflected in the line stats, as the two squads combined for 25 hits and each committed one error. Wheaton left ten runners on base, while Carroll stranded eight. The Pioneers stole two bases, while the Thunder took four bags, three of which came from
Larken Lancaster.
Matthias Haggerty went for a game-high four RBI and a joint-best three hits while scoring one run. Lancaster also tallied a trifecta of hits and scored twice in addition to his game-high three stolen bases.
Harrison Stanton generated a pair of hits and runs, while
Joe Klein came up with two hits, an RBI, and a score.
Mason Diel's home run produced two RBI, while
Ben Weaver collected one hit, RBI, and run.
The Thunder will take the next few days to regroup from Saturday's disappointment before heading west for their next contest. Wheaton is set to play Augustana in a midweek road game on Wednesday evening in Rock Island.
