BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - The Carthage College baseball team suffered a meltdown on the first day of the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin Tournament Thursday at Illinois Wesleyan University.

The second-seeded Red Men lost to No. 3 seed Augustana 6-5 after allowing four runs in the ninth inning. Carthage (32-7) will try to get back on track in the tournament today with a 2:30 p.m. game against Wheaton. Illinois Wesleyan beat Wheaton 7-5 in the other first-round game.

Carthage took a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the first inning when Jason Acevado doubled home Boe Baitinger and Mike Hughes followed with a two-run homer.

The Red Men (32-7) extended that lead to 5-1 in the second. Josh Albers scored on a fielder's choice and Tony Gragnani scored from second when Augustana first baseman Eric Izzo was unable to come up with the ball.

But after Augustana (32-9) pulled to within 5-2 in the fourth inning, the Vikings rallied for four runs in the ninth to win the game.

Augustana loaded the bases off reliever Corey Richardson. John Wagle followed with a two-run single, Myles Kurnick drove in the tying run on a fielder's choice grounder and Wagle scored the go-ahead run on the front end of a double steal.

"All we needed in the ninth was three outs and we had the first guy struck out," Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV said. "Then we had a tailor-made double play and we kicked it away. We've been kicking it away all year - this didn't just start tonight. We've always weasled our way out of it.

"You know this is going to come back and haunt you. You can't keep winning playing defense as bad as we do."