Raul Guillermo (Miami, Florida) tied a school record with three home runs but the Monmouth College baseball team lost 9-8 at Illinois Wesleyan on Sunday. The Scots (11-12) scored five in the eighth, powered by Guillermo’s grand slam, but couldn’t complete the non-conference comeback.
The Titans scored in the bottom of the first against Brandon Coats (Mapleton, Illinois). Guillermo tied the game with a leadoff home run in the second inning, his third of the season.
Illinois Wesleyan scored three runs, one earned, in the second inning off Tyler Sears (Bloomington, Illinois) and two in the third off Clayton Rentschler (Riverton, Illinois). After a pitching change by the Titans, Guillermo hit another solo home run in the fourth to cut the deficit to 6-2.
Toby Turnquist (Monmouth, Illinois) gave up three runs in the fifth and the Scots got one back in the sixth. Clayton Matkovic (Sherrard, Illinois) led off with a triple and scored on a sacrifice fly by Daniel Lummus (New Port Richey, Florida).
Heath Hornke (Normal, Illinois) and NIck Villa (El Segundo, California) kept the Titans off the board for the next two innings. Trailing 9-4, the Scots got things going offensively in the eighth. Eric Campen (Washington, Illinois) drew a walk as a pinch-hitter and Aiden Scott (Carrollton, Illinois) was hit by a pitch. Tyler Houck (Park Ridge, Illinois) walked to load the bases and Campen scored on a single by Lummus. Guillermo cleared the bases with a grand slam, his third home run of the day, as Monmouth cut the IWU lead to 9-8. Alexander Dye (Albuquerque, New Mexico) reached on an error to put the tying run aboard but two fly outs ended the inning.
Lummus pitched the eighth and struck out two to keep the score 9-8. The Scots put the tying run on base as Alexander Keenan (Sherman, Illinois) singled with one out but the game ended 9-8. Sears (0-1) took the loss as the Scots used seven pitchers on the day.
MONMOUTH MOMENTS: Guillermo’s three homers tie a single-game school record He is the sixth player to hit three homers in a game and the last player to do so was Mike Dato on April 18, 2021 at Grinnell The 12 total bases are tied for third in a game in school history and the sixth RBI are tied for seventh With five homers on the season, Guillermo has a career-high after hitting four in both 2022 and 2023 He also homered at IWU last year but the game was canceled due to rain before the fifth inning and the stats didn’t count Guillermo is tied for 12th on the Scots career home runs list with 13 and tied for 14th on the career RBI list with 85 The last grand slam was hit April 29, 2023 by Jack Kuethe at Illinois College Lummus pitched for the first time since March 2022 Campen got his first plate appearance of the season and first run scored Keenan got his hit of the season Villa has 18 strikeouts in 9.1 innings this season Matkovic has five triples on the season, one away from the record shared by coach Alan Betourne, Jordan Ball and Harry Sanchez The Scots are 15-20 all-time against IWU Monmouth will play Monday at Cornell in Midwest Conference action with a 6 p.m. first pitch.
***Courtesy of Nathan Baliva, Monmouth College***
