BB: CCIW: College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin

[BigPoppa]

I misread Carthage's pitching staff this season. Their offense is very good but their pitching is atrocious. Gonna be a long season as Carthage falls to 1-3 in the CCIW already and has yet to face the traditional powers.

[Mr. Ypsi]

To my surprise (but delight ), IWU won the rubber game against NCC today, 7-2.  The hitters started en fuego, with four runs in the first and two more in the second.  The Cards never recovered.  Eric Bennes (now 1-1) gets his first win; Jon Clifford (now 3-1) takes his first loss.  Nick Figus continues to knock on the door for conference Player of the Year: he went 3 for 4 today.  For the season he is now .486 BA, 1.305 OPS;  in conference play, .538 BA, 1.263 OPS.  (And, yes, it is WAY to early to be talking conference awards! )

[Gregory Sager]

... but you're going to do it, anyway.

[mwunder]

I misread Carthage's pitching staff this season. Their offense is very good but their pitching is atrocious. Gonna be a long season as Carthage falls to 1-3 in the CCIW already and has yet to face the traditional powers.

It physically hurts watching them pitch from behind to every single batter...

[Mr. Ypsi]

In the first of two at Augie, the final is Augie 6, IWU 5.  The Titans outhit the Vikings 10-8, and led the whole game until yielding 3 runs in the bottom of the 7th, but Augie got the right hits at the right times; IWU didn't.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Game two in RI is headed to the eleventh, tied at 3.  This time Augie led the whole game, until the Titans got three in the seventh.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Augie gets the sweep, with a run in the bottom of the 12th.  Braden Miller takes the loss, but I've gotta wonder about Coach Martell on this one.  Braden had only pitched 5 innings all season before today (and not all that well: era of 12.6) - he was magnificent for five entire innings (1-hit, no runs, from the 7th thru the 11th), but come on - that is already equal to his entire season coming in!!  He gave up his 2nd and 3rd hits to the first two batters, then a sac bunt, then the game-winning single for Augie - talk about Miller enduring trial - by - fire!!

[BigPoppa]

Anyone have a score from the first Carthage/Wheaton game today?

[mr_b]

Anyone have a score from the first Carthage/Wheaton game today?

Today's scores, from the CCIW website:

Augustana 6, Illinois Wesleyan 5

Augustana 4, Illinois Wesleyan 3

North Park 8, Carroll 6

North Park 10, Carroll 8

Millikin 11, Elmhurst 3

Wheaton 9, Carthage 8

Carthage 10, Wheaton 7

[mr_b]

On Tuesday afternoon North Park swept a doubleheader from Carroll, coming from behind in both contests to win by scores of 8-6 and 10-8.  In game one, Tyler Banks worked seven innings in his first career start to pick up the win and move to 4-1 on the season, while Andy Robbins notched his third save.  Ranko Stevanovic went 4-for-4 and Brandon Davis had two clutch hits to drive in four runs.  TJ Pfaffle was 4-for-5 for the Pioneers.  In game two, Jake Reinhardt went 4-for-5 with a pair of doubles and three RBIs as the Vikings rallied for four runs in the bottom of the seventh to take the lead. Ethan Sund turned in a brilliant relief stint, working the final 2 1/3 innings and yielding just one infield single while striking out six of the eight batters he retired to pick up his second victory.

[Gregory Sager]

Game two in RI Moline is headed to the eleventh, tied at 3.  This time Augie led the whole game, until the Titans got three in the seventh.

FTFY.

[Gregory Sager]

It sounds counterintuitive to praise North Park pitchers on a day in which the Vikings gave up 14 runs and 26 hits over the course of the doubleheader, but there were two pretty outstanding pitching performances by the Vikes today. Mr. B has already mentioned Ethan Sund's lights-out performance at the end of game two, but earlier in that game Sund's fellow sophomore Brendan Russ, who had only pitched an inning and a third in two appearances all season, entered the contest in the third inning and pitched three scoreless innings in which the only Pioneer to reach did so via an infield error. Unfortunately, Luke Johnson tried to get Russ through the Carroll order a second time and Russ hit the wall, allowing the first four batters to reach in his fourth inning of work -- all of whom scored -- before he was yanked. But if he can be that effective in short stints in the future, then NPU might have another useful presence in the bullpen.

One of the stories of the day was Matthew Putman -- or, rather, what Matthew Putman didn't do for Carroll. He came into the contest leading all of D3 in batting at .614 and in OBP at .676, and he was also fifth in the nation in slugging at .860. But the Vikings shut him down today; Putman went 1-10 with a walk, his lone hit being a single, and he stranded seven teammates -- including a pair of bases-loaded situations in the first game, with the second being a flyout to right to end the game when the tying run was on second and the go-ahead run was on first. And, speaking of batting leaders, Anthony DiNardo of NPU has now qualified for the batting average leaderboard, and he's taken over for Putman as the CCIW's leading hitter. DiNardo now posts an average of .605 on the season. Since going 4-4 against Earlham back on March 15 down in Florida, the Nard Dog has strung together eight straight multi-hit games.

Anyone have a score from the first Carthage/Wheaton game today?

Today's scores, from the CCIW website:

Augustana 6, Illinois Wesleyan 5

Augustana 4, Illinois Wesleyan 3

North Park 8, Carroll 6

North Park 10, Carroll 8

Millikin 11, Elmhurst 3

Millikin 24, Elmhurst 0 (That's not a typo.)

Wheaton 9, Carthage 8

Carthage 10, Wheaton 7

[Mr. Ypsi]

Game two in RI Moline is headed to the eleventh, tied at 3.  This time Augie led the whole game, until the Titans got three in the seventh.

FTFY.

I thought the stadium was in Moline (though my memory has gotten more and more suspect in recent years ), but I was reporting on game two, and livestats located the site as RI (despite saying Moline on the game one livestats!).  Since we all know that livestats never makes mistakes, I figured either the two cities' leaders had redrawn the boundaries at just that moment, or they had physically relocated the stadium between games!

[Gregory Sager]

Or option three: A bad smell blew in off of the river, so they went upwind across the city line to a nearby park to play the nightcap.

[Mr. Ypsi]

Or option three: A bad smell blew in off of the river, so they went upwind across the city line to a nearby park to play the nightcap.

Nah - both games were listed as Swanson (Stadium)/Brunner (Field), so mine are the only two options - barring (OMG ) someone making a silly mistake!  (You can still see the evidence in the box scores on the IWU baseball site.  Which is somewhat alarming as I actually expect occasional errors on livestats, but I assumed posted box scores would be more carefully proofread.)