FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Drew Sauer, Assistant Sports Information Director, 630-637-5324

May 5, 2015 – After capturing the 11^th College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) regular-season championship in program history last weekend, the North Central College baseball team will host the CCIW Tournament beginning May 7 for the first time since 2010, with the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Tournament on the line.

Despite dropping the three-game series to Augustana College to open conference play, the Cardinals went on to win the final six series, finishing with a record of 16-5 in the CCIW while posting an overall record of 25-14.

Also qualifying for this season's tournament are regular-season runner-up Wheaton College (14-7), followed by No. 3 seed Illinois Wesleyan University (12-9) and No. 4 seed Carthage College (12-9).

Vito DeRango currently leads the Cardinal offense, batting .387 with a team-high 53 hits and five sacrifice flies, while ranking second on the team in runs scored (31), homeruns (3), total bases (76) and on-base percentage (.426).

Joe Paparone and Sam Klein each rank second on the team with 51 hits this season, while Paparone leads the team with six homeruns, 38 RBI, 32 runs scored, 83 total bases and a .572 slugging percentage.

On the mound, Bryan Polowy has been lights out this season, leading the conference with seven victories while holding opposing batters to a CCIW leading .184 batting average against and posting a conference-low 1.07 earned run average.  Polowy has struck out 54 batters over 67 1/3 innings pitched this season.

Ben Krusen has re-written the career record book this season, becoming the program's all-time strikeout leader (227), while also topping the career games started list (37).  Krusen also ranks second in career innings pitched (250.0), needing just 5 2/3 innings in his next start to tie the all-time lead, while ranking sixth in shutouts (2), seventh in wins (14) and his career 3.06 ERA would currently rank third all-time.

North Central will open tournament play on Thursday, May 7 against Carthage beginning at 12 p.m. at Zimmerman Stadium, with Wheaton and Illinois Wesleyan squaring off at 3 p.m.  The losers of Thursday's games will play Friday morning at 9:30 a.m., with the winners of the first two games to follow at 12:30 p.m. in the double elimination format tournament.  Additional information can be found at the tournament website HERE.