Jordan Jaehne-Llanas' arm and John Lequia's bat were pretty much all the Carthage College baseball team needed Saturday at the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship.

Jaehne-Llanas struck out nine, allowed seven hits and just one unearned run and Lequia highlighted an eight-run seventh inning with a grand slam to lead the Red Men to a 10-1 victory over defending national champion Trinity University in the losers' bracket of the tournament at Fox Cities Stadium in Grand Chute.

Carthage (37-8), ranked fourth in the May 19 American Baseball Coaches Association/Collegiate Baseball NCAA Division III poll and seventh in the May 5 "D3baseball.com" poll, will play the winner of the game between Shenandoah and St. Thomas at 3:30 p.m. today in a losers' bracket semifinal. Trinity (33-7), which lost just its eighth game in 86 games over the last two seasons, was eliminated from the tournament.

The game was a pitchers' duel through the first 4½ innings, although Jaehne-Llanas (9-2) pitched out of jams with runners in scoring position in three of those innings.

The Red Men got on the scoreboard in the fifth inning when Lequia hit a slow roller to the right side of the infield to drive in Shoreland Lutheran graduate Tyler Eickmeyer for a 1-0 Carthage lead.

Trinity loaded the bases with two outs in the seventh inning on Eickmeyer's throwing error, a single and a walk. But Jaehne-Llanas forced Kent Graham to hit an infield pop-up to end the inning.

Lequia, a Park High School graduate, broke the game open in the bottom of the seventh. After Eickmeyer singled to extend his hitting streak to 23 games, Joe Ferro hit a bunt single and Trevor Whately was hit by a pitch, Chris Shannon hit into a fielder's choice and Eickmeyer was forced out at home. Lequia then hit the first pitch to him, a low breaking ball, to right field and off the foul pole for the grand slam. Mike Hughes started another rally with a single, Will Hodges was hit by a pitch and Tim Hansen hit a double over the center fielder's head to drove in both runners. Eickmeyer singled again, sending Hansen to third, and after Eickmeyer stole second, Ferro hit a two-run single to cap the scoring in the inning.

"With the bases loaded, the first pitch you see is the one you want to hit, because you know the pitcher has to come in," Lequia said. "I got a breaking ball, so I was able to sit back a little and get deep on it."

Trinity scored an unearned run in the top of the eighth, but Drew Robert countered for Carthage with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the eighth.

Jaehne-Llanas tired and Trinity got its first two runners on base in the top of the ninth, but Mike Maher shut the door in relief. Maher induced two ground balls, the second one turning into a game-ending double play.

"That was probably the hardest 10-1 game we've played in awhile," Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV said. "It was a typical 2009 Carthage game. We kick things around, we do some goofy things, but we had one big inning and came out on top. Trinity has a very nice club, and they put a lot of pressure on us.

"Jordan Jaehne-Llanas' ability to pitch out of trouble, repeatedly, kept us in the game long enough to finally do something at the plate. Up until the seventh inning, we hadn't done anything in this tournament, offensively."

Eickmeyer's hitting streak is tied for the third longest in Carthage history with Rick Ramczyk. Only Glen Braun's 26-game streak in 1999 and Justin Hallock's 25-game streak in 2001 are longer.