Adam Carlson

MONMOUTH, Ill. — Two of Monmouth College’s hitting stars from last season are batting well under last year’s pace. The two aces of the Fighting Scots’ staff in 2003, who both had ERAs below 2.15, graduated last May.

Yet Monmouth keeps finding ways to win. In fact, the 21-11 Scots have already surpassed last season’s win total and, with some success at the MWC tournament, can make a run at their school-record 26 victories from 2002.

That was the last season that Monmouth hosted the Midwest Conference Championship Baseball Tournament. Rain washed away all of the second day, leaving the Scots as the champions after wins over St. Norbert and Knox. Monmouth may play the role of soggy host again this season, as the forecast is calling for wet weather on the first day of the tourney on Friday.

Action gets underway at the college’s Glasgow Field and at Knox College’s Blodgett Field at 9:30 a.m. Monmouth will host St. Norbert in one first-round game, while North Division champion Ripon will meet Illinois College in Galesburg. The winners will meet at Glasgow Field at approximately 1 p.m. to determine one half of the championship game, while an elimination game at Blodgett Field will be played between the two losing teams, also around 1 p.m.

As tourney host, Monmouth could be considered the favorite, but it wouldn’t be because of the way they flat-out dominate teams. Game in and game out, coach Roger Sander, who won his 200th contest at Monmouth on Saturday, doesn’t know who the Scots’ hero will be, but someone consistently manages to step up to lift the team to a narrow victory. Lately, Tristan Reimolds and Matt Gordon have been swinging hot bats, and Steve Myros delivered a huge complete-game victory last Saturday against Illinois College. In all, 14 of the Scots’ 21 wins have come by three runs or less.

Myros’ 4-1 gem assured the Scots of no worse than a tie for the South Division title and it earned him the Midwest Conference Performer of the Week honor. However, Monmouth didn’t clinch the outright crown until the nightcap, when center fielder Jason Salmon threw out two runners on the basepaths in the bottom of the ninth. The last assist ended the game and gave the Scots a wild 12-11 victory.

“Jason’s arm isn’t strong, but it’s accurate,” said Sander. “He told me that he’d never thrown a kid out before, then he does it twice in one inning. On the second one, the ball took a funny hop as it went out to him, like it hit a sprinkler head or something. Their guy tried to stretch it into a double, but he was out, game over.”

Actually, MC’s baseball stats for the past two years do show Salmon with three other assists, but Sander said the sophomore’s heroics are typical of the make-up of this year’s squad.

“We tell the guys that baseball is a game of failure,” said Sander. “Good hitters make outs 70 percent of the time. But if you can’t win it with your bat, win it with your legs. And if you can’t win it with your legs, win it with your glove. It’s the old Willie Mays quote – ‘I’m going to beat you some way.’ We just do it any way we can. This is a team like no other one I’ve had.”

The formula for victory in the Scots’ past two wins has been to get a big lead, then have Steve Mumma pull an escape act in the bottom of the ninth. Mumma was on the hill when Salmon’s throw ended the Illinois College game, and he also came on to earn the save in Monday’s 7-6 non-conference win at Illinois Wesleyan, pitching out of a bases-loaded jam. Just a freshman, Mumma has already tied the MC career save record with four.

Adam “AC” Carlson earned the win in the nightcap against IC, adding to the legend of the “SMAC Attack.” Both Myros and Carlson pitched at the same high school, and they sport ERAs of 3.04 and 3.03, respectively, with a combined won-loss record of 11-5.

Of course, the Scots aren’t the only staff with a strong 1-2 punch. Illinois College boasts Kevin Reed and Shane Patton, who both pitched strong games at Monmouth in April, while Ripon has a staff that goes at least four-deep, led by returning All-MWC hurlers Dan Williams (6-0, 1.98) and Noah Wishau (5-3, 3.70).

St. Norbert, which won the playoffs last year as the No. 2 team from the North, is in that role again, and the Green Knights are hoping for some more offensive fireworks from Nick Olsen, who went 5-for-6 with four homers and a national-record 12 RBI in a 22-12 win over Carroll earlier this year. Chris Griffin (.385, 8 HR, 26 RBI) also packs a wallop.

“It’s pretty wide open,” said Sander, when asked to handicap the event. “I think it’s always that way when you get to tournament baseball. This is the time of the season when legends are made.”