Carol Stream, Ill. -- The Thunder baseball team returned to Lee Pfund Stadium for the final time this year on Saturday afternoon to welcome the Augustana Vikings for the conclusion of their weekend series. After falling to Wheaton in Rock Island on Thursday night, the visiting Vikings returned the favor and claimed both games of today's doubleheader to earn the series victory. Wheaton's season record now stands at 10-25, and with a CCIW mark of 4-14 with just two games left to play, the Thunder have been eliminated from conference tournament contention.
Today was Senior Day for the Wheaton squad, and the 14 graduating players on this year's roster were celebrated along with their families before the start of the first game. Unsurprisingly, seniors played a key role on both sides of the ball for the Thunder in Saturday's twinbill.
The hosts got off to a blistering start on a warm and windy afternoon in the suburbs, jumping out to an 8-2 lead after three innings in game one.
Mason Diel started the party with a RBI single to score
Harrison Stanton, before
Kyle Wu fired off a two-run double to bring Diel and
Joe Klein home. Wu then scored himself to make it four runs in the Thunder's opening batting series. Augustana got on the board in the following frame, but consecutive home runs from Klein and Diel padded Wheaton's early advantage.
Noah Yi registered a RBI double in the bottom of the third to allow
Jacob Snyder to scamper home, and a subsequent wild pitch completed Wheaton's eight-run surge to begin the day.
But the Quad City visitors had no intention of surrendering the weekend series without a fight, and Augie blasted off 11 runs over the next three frames while limiting Wheaton to only one score to jump ahead at 13-9. An unfortunately-timed combination of inconsistent pitching and limited offensive production prevented the Thunder from sealing a game one victory after building up their early edge, and the Vikings successfully pulled off a spirited comeback. A RBI single from
Daniel Hillyer for the team's tenth run gave Wheaton a glimmer of hope in the final frame, but the away side notched the third out it needed and leveled the series up at one win apiece with a 14-10 result.
Both teams let the bats fly in game one, and the hosts posted 14 hits to Augustana's 13. The Thunder struck out three more Vikings batters than their opponents managed to, and Wheaton only left seven runners on base compared to Augie's 13. But the visitors committed two fewer errors, stole three more bases, and enjoyed a crucial advantage of ten more walked hitters than Wheaton had in today's first contest.
Senior southpaw
Nate Barker started his final game at Lee Pfund Stadium today and sat down a game-high six opposition batters in his 4.1 innings on the mound. Fellow veteran pitcher
John McCraith threw one inning of relief and struck out an Augustana hitter, while
Jared Kloth pitched the final two frames for the Thunder and also tallied a strikeout while conceding just one hit from the ten batters he faced.
Klein and Snyder were both 3-5 at the plate in the first contest today and each scored a pair of runs with the former also contributing a RBI. Diel went 2-5 with two runs scored and two RBI, while Wu generated a team-high three RBI and collected one hit and one score. Yi came up with two RBI, one run, and one hit, and Hillyer posted two hits and batted one run in. Stanton scored twice and registered one hit in game one, and
Luke Hamm also provided one hit.
With it all to play for in the third game of this weekend's series, the two sides began today's second matchup more cautiously and the game was more defensive in nature. The Vikings opened the scoring in the top of the second frame, but Wheaton matched them at 1-1 in the third thanks to a
Matt Nelson solo homer.
Kyle Wu followed up one inning later with a first-pitch solo deep shot of his own to edge the Thunder in front on the scoreboard, but this would be the last time the hosts led on Saturday, as Augustana again went on a scoring spree in the middle of the game to pull away. Having been held scoreless in the fifth and sixth innings, Wheaton faced an 11-2 deficit by the time it came back up to bat in the bottom of the seventh. But Nelson homered once again to end the hosts' drought, and Wheaton nearly pulled off a wild comeback in the last frame.
After a sleepy eighth inning that saw only one total hit for either side, the Thunder defense blanked the Vikings in their final batting series of the day to give themselves one last chance to preserve their CCIW Tournament hopes. Back-to-back ground-rule doubles from
Noah Yi and
Daniel Hillyer brought
Jacob Snyder and Yi across the pentagon, respectively, and started a five-run surge by the home side. A sacrifice fly from Nelson then allowed Hillyer to make it 11-6, before
Joe Klein (
pictured below celebrating a home run) stepped up and blasted his 21st career homer and final Pfund Stadium bomb over the left field wall to score himself and
Tyler Weiner and raise the Vikings' blood pressure.
But a strikeout on the next at-bat cut short any hopes of a thrilling walk-off victory for the Thunder on Senior Day, and Augustana held on to clinch the weekend series and confirm its place above Wheaton in the battle for one of the remaining conference tournament spots.
The Vikings edged the Thunder, 13-11, in total hits in game two this evening, and the two sides played a clean contest with just one combined error committed. The even nature of today's second game was reflected in the number of walked and struck out batters, with both sides tallying four and six in the respective categories, although Augie saw three of their batsmen struck by pitches and allowed to take first base. Despite tallying two fewer hits across the nine innings of play, Wheaton won the distance competition, logging an impressive seven extra-base hits while limiting its guest to only three. The Thunder also stranded fewer baserunners again in game two, leaving four men on the bags compared to Augustana's nine.
Senior pitcher
Brendan Dyer got his final home start on the mound for Wheaton in game two and tossed a pair of strikeouts. Fellow fourth-year throwers
Larry Arndt and
Daniel Larimer also got the chance to take the mound at Pfund one last time, and both relievers equipped themselves well, with Arndt sitting down a game-high three Augie batters from the five he faced and Larimer allowing no hits or runs in the ninth inning.
Nelson steered the Wheaton offense in the second half of Saturday's twinbill, posting two home runs and team-highs of three RBI and two runs scored. Klein went for an even two hits and two RBI while scoring once, and Yi joined the aforementioned pair on two hits with one run and one RBI, in addition to helping turn a spectacular double play in the sixth inning. Wu and Hillyer registered one of each category, and Snyder and Weiner both contributed one hit and one run.
Having closed out its home slate for the season, Wheaton's 2024 campaign will end next Saturday with a doubleheader at Millikin University. The Thunder and the Big Blue are scheduled to meet at 1 & 4 PM in Decatur.
