Contact: Clark Teuscher, Sports Information Director, 630-637-5302
Game 1 Box Score
Game 2 Box Score
PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. (Mar. 20, 2019) - A successful business trip was finished in style by the North Central College baseball team on Wednesday, as the Cardinals displayed sterling pitching and timely run production to sweep a double header against the No. 3-ranked College of Wooster at North Charlotte Regional Park, 4-3 and 3-1.
The twin victories over a team which advanced to the NCAA Division III College World Series a season ago give the Cardinals (8-1) five wins in their six games in the Snowbird Classic over their Spring Break.
Neither team was able to get its offense untracked early in Wednesday's opener, as the first five innings were a standoff between North Central starting pitcher Austin Polezoes and Wooster starter Andrew Hill. The Scots (4-4) took advantage of an error to push the day's first run across the plate in the third, but both teams' lineups were otherwise handcuffed until the hurlers made their respective exits in the sixth.
Wooster extended its lead to 3-0 and stayed in front until the bottom of the seventh, when the Cardinals staged their game-winning rally. Declan Smyth and Matt Sutherland drew consecutive walks before Jeremy Quade drove in North Central's first run with a double. Rob Marinec followed with a sacrifice fly, and John Carmody's double tied the score at 3-3. The winning run was driven in by Colin Weilbacher, who fouled off three straight 0-2 pitches before coming through with a two-out single to score Carmody.
The Scots were shut out over the final three innings by relief pitcher Nick Rogalski, who allowed just two base hits and never permitted a runner to reach scoring position in his first appearance of 2019. Polezoes allowed six hits across his five innings and has yet to allow an earned run in three starts this season. Carmody went 3 for 4 at the plate in the opener.
North Central struck quickly in the second game, as Quade singled and scored on an RBI double by Marinec within the first four pitches of the contest. The Scots, however, knotted the score at 1-1 in the bottom half of the first inning. Quade reached on a base hit again in the third and gave the Cardinals a 2-1 lead by scoring on a single by Carmody.
The Cardinals got an insurance run in the eighth as Sutherland reached on an errant third-strike pitch, advanced on singles by Quade and Marinec, then scored on Carmody's sacrifice fly. The margin turned out to be more than enough for North Central's pitching staff, as John Clifford earned his third victory of the season in his first start. Clifford yielded six hits in six innings and retired the last nine batters he faced before Luke Lamm came on in relief and pitched three shutout innings, allowing only one hit, in earning the save.
Quade went 3 for 4 in the nightcap, while Marinec was 2 for 4 and Weilbacher finished 2 for 5.
The Cardinals play a double header at Wisconsin Lutheran College on Saturday before opening their home schedule on Sunday against St. Mary's University (Minnesota).
