Box score

With one loss already in the double-elimination tournament, every game is an elimination game for the Saints now but for the second time in two days they lived to fight another game, this time sending Carthage (Wis.) College home with a 9-4 victory on Friday afternoon at the NCAA Midwest Regional in Oshkosh, Wis.

After falling to No. 8 Wis.-Whitewater in their Regional opener on Wednesday the Saints came back on Thursday with a win over Knox (Ill.) College, the same team that Carthage beat on day one.

While the Saints were eliminating Knox, Carthage got thumped by Whitewater to fall into the loser's bracket with St. Scholastica setting up Friday's showdown.

And just like in the Knox game where a first inning home run put the Saints on top early, Darrin Carlson (Hermantown, Minn./Hermantown HS) belted a two-run home run off Carthage starting pitcher Mario Perez to give the Saints a 2-0 that stretched to 3-0 before the third out of the inning with a Joey Link RBI single that scored Mike Lewis (Esko, Minn./Esko HS).

On the mound for the Saints, junior phenom Adian Kummet (Brainerd, Minn./Brainerd HS) kept the Red Men off the scoreboard while scattering six hits over the first six innings while getting some help in the field with a pair of double-plays in successive innings.

Up 6-0, Carthage finally removed the goose-egg from the scoreboard as pinch-hitter Will Hodges sent one of Kummet's offerings over the left field wall to trim the lead from six to only four at 6-2.

Blake Eller (Brainerd, Minn./Brainerd HS) got one of the runs back for the Saints in the bottom half of the inning with a two-out solo home run to left, then Steve Gerten (West St. Paul, Minn./Henry Sibley HS)'s RBI single to left in the eighth brought home Sean Claugherty (Oakdale, Minn./Tartan HS) who led the inning off with his own single to left.

Carthage scored two more runs, both unearned, in the ninth but Kummet enticed Steve Coughlin into a game-ending 6-4-3 double play that kept the Saints in the tournament and set up a showdown at 4 p.m. with St. Thomas -- loser's earlier in the day to Whitewater in an extra-inning affair -- in yet another elimination game.

Along with Carlson, Gerten also registered a pair of RBI for the Saints, now 34-5 on the year.

Eller finished with a 4-for-5 outing scoring three times while the 5-6-7-8 batters in the line-up -- Lewis, Gerten, Link, and Kyle Wojtysiak (Proctor, Minn./Proctor HS) -- each collected two hits apiece in the victory as the Saints pounded out 16 hits off three different Carthage hurlers.

Kummet (8-2) pitched all nine innings for the complete-game win yielding just the two earned runs on 11 hits and only one walk while striking out eight.

Perez (7-1) took the loss for the Red Men whose season ends with a 36-10 record.