MOLINE, Ill. – The Augustana Vikings baseball team returns home on Wednesday, April 14 for a conference battle against the Wheaton Thunder.
The Vikings hold an 18-6 record, 3-2 in conference, and are coming off a 15-5 defeat to the No. 23 North Central Cardinals in Naperville, Ill. Augie nabbed a trio of runs in the third inning, jumping to an early 3-0 lead before enduring a 10-run eruption from the Cardinals in the fourth. The team secured their final two runs of the game in the fifth inning, with Ethan Sosnowski belting an RBI single prior to Alec McGinnis earning a bases-loaded walk to bring in the Vikings' final run. North Central added five more runs, capped off with two in the bottom of the eighth to end the game by run rule.
Augie had seven players collect hits in the contest, with Kyle Campbell, Matt Ozanic, Alex Simon, Sosnowski, and McGinnis each claiming an RBI.
Wheaton is 12-11 overall and 4-3 in the CCIW. From April 7-8, the Thunder faced Carroll three times, losing the series 2-1, with their final contest on Sunday ending in a narrow 11-10 defeat to the Pioneers. Wheaton jumped to a 6-0 lead in the top of the first inning but saw an immediate response from Carroll as the Pioneers cut that deficit in half with three runs of their own. Wheaton was outscored 5-3 across the second and third frames as Carroll tied the game at 9-9 entering the fourth. The Pioneers added a run in the bottom of the sixth, but a Thunder score in the top of the seventh inning quickly erased it. The Pioneers broke the deadlock in the eighth inning with a Thomas Ward solo home run to seize the series.
Augustana leads Wheaton 92-51 in the all-time series, with the most recent meeting against the Thunder resulting in a 7-6 win for the Vikings in the first round of the 2022 CCIW Tournament. Through the top of the third, Augie led 5-1, but the Thunder responded with two runs in the bottom half of the inning to cut the deficit to 5-3. Wheaton surged for three additional runs in the fifth to take a one-run lead, but the Vikings added scores in the eighth and ninth inning to pull out the win and advance in the tournament. Campbell led Augustana's offense, going 3-for-4 from the plate with four RBI.
The conference battle begins at 6:00 p.m. from Swanson Stadium. Stream link can be found here.
