Chicago, Ill. -- Heading into the Windy City this evening for the return leg of its two-game CCIW series against North Park, the Wheaton baseball team looked to avenge its narrow 8-7 defeat at the hands of the Vikings in late March. But today's hosts proved once again that they had just enough in the tank to see off a spirited effort from the Thunder, and the Vikings used a ninth-inning walk-off score to earn another one-run win, this time at a 7-6 scoreline. Today's disappointing result moves Wheaton back into a tie with Elmhurst on a 3-12 CCIW record, although the Thunder own the head-to-head tiebreak over the Bluejays. North Park improves to 11-3 in conference action and currently sits in a three-way tie atop the CCIW standings alongside Illinois Wesleyan and Millikin.
In the last meeting between these sides in the suburbs, the Thunder led for most of the game and North Park needed a late flurry of runs to avoid the upset. Wheaton nearly managed to flip the script on Tuesday and do the same thing in reverse, as the visitors scored five of their six runs in the final three innings. The Vikings enjoyed a 5-1 lead heading into the seventh frame today, but the Thunder had no intentions of allowing their big city opponents to sail to an easy win.
Matt Nelson opened the scoring with his first home run of the season in the top of the third, but North Park fired back with two homers of its own and added a RBI single in the bottom of the fourth to establish an early cushion.
A pair of three-up, three-down innings followed, and it seemed as though the home side would be able to see the game out with minimum fuss. But a solo home run from
Jacob Snyder sparked Wheaton's interest in the contest, and a
Noah Yi double brought
Nathan Hedlund in to score to halve the deficit at 5-3. After a sacrifice fly gave the Vikings their sixth run,
Joe Klein joined the distance competition in the top of the eighth with his team-leading sixth homer of the campaign. The comeback attempt was well and truly on after that point, with the Thunder blanking their hosts in the bottom half before tallying two more runs in the top of the final frame. After Yi worked his way up to third base,
Harrison Stanton scored him with a RBI single into left field. This was immediately followed by another RBI single from Klein to bring
Matt Nelson across home plate with the tying run at 6-6.
Wheaton had the go-ahead score at third base, but consecutive fielder's choice put-outs ended its hopes of winning the game in regulation. Now the issue became whether or not North Park could regroup and snatch a dramatic late win. Unfortunately for the Thunder, the answer was yes, as the Vikings scored the decisive final run with a RBI single of their own to break Wheaton hearts and claim the season series with another nail-biting result.
The two teams combined for 20 hits this evening, with the Thunder accounting for 11 of them. Both sides also stranded seven base runners and stole one bag. Wheaton walked four more batters than North Park did, but the visitors also tossed six more strikeouts than the home side managed on Tuesday. The windy conditions in tonight's contest proved favorable for the hitters, as five total home runs were fired off.
JD Van Hook started on the mound for Wheaton and sat down a game-high five NPU batsmen in his four innings.
Joshua Liu provided two frames of quality relief work, striking out four Vikings and allowing just one hit and one unearned run from the ten batters he faced.
John McCraith made his season-high 15th appearance tonight and tossed a pair of strikeouts in his 2.1 innings of work.
Snyder was 3-3 at the plate this evening and generated one score and one RBI from his second homer of the season. Klein went 3-5 with two RBI and one score, while Nelson and Yi were both 2-4 with one RBI and the former scored a team-best two runs. Stanton contributed one hit and one RBI on Tuesday.
Wheaton will step away from the conference schedule briefly to entertain Kalamazoo College on Wednesday night at Lee Pfund Stadium. The game between the Thunder and the Hornets is Wheaton's last scheduled non-conference contest of the season, and first pitch is set for 6 PM tomorrow.
