The Carthage College baseball team is grateful for second chances.

The Red Men got off to a shaky start Friday in the opening round of the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship at Fox Cities Stadium in Grand Chute, losing 8-1 to the College of Wooster (Ohio).

If Carthage (36-8) is to make a run at the national title, the Red Men will have to do it through the losers' bracket.

"We didn't put our best foot forward and we didn't play the way we did to get to this game," Carthage coach Augie Schmidt IV said. "Right now, I'd have a little trouble cashing the NCAA's check for sending us here. That said, we have another opportunity to show what we can do and why we're here."

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, the Red Men will play defending national champion Trinity College of Hartford, Conn., at 10 a.m. Saturday. Trinity lost 8-5 to Kean University Friday in another first-round game.

"I don't know anybody who wants to play the Kean-Trinity loser, though," Schmidt said. "We earned this trip, but I wasn't all that happy with the way we played. You get to this point, with eight teams left, and you want to show people why you're here."

Carthage had the momentum early in the game, taking a 1-0 lead in the third. With two outs, former Shoreland Lutheran High School standout and Red Men second baseman Tyler Eickmeyer extended his hitting streak to 22 games with a single. On a perfectly executed hit-and-run, Eickmeyer scored on a double to the left-field gap by former Park High School standout and Red Men first baseman John Lequia.

But that would be the only run the Red Men would score in the game.

Wooster (40-9), ranked No. 3, took the lead for good in the bottom of the third. With runners at first and second and two outs, Matthew Pierce singled in the tying run. Zach Vesco then hit a bouncer that Carthage pitcher Mario Perez kicked to try to slow the ball down. Eickmeyer retrieved the ball, but bobbled it trying to make the force play at second, allowing Stu Beath to score the go-ahead run.

Carthage put two runners on with no outs in the fourth, when Drew Roberts doubled leading off and Will Hodges reached on an error, but Wooster pitcher Justin McDowell worked out of the jam with no damage.

Sean Karpen's solo home run in the fourth put the Fighting Scots up 3-1 and Wooster broke the game open with a four-run sixth, highlighted by Karpen's two-run double. Reliever Bryan Kieffer then misplayed a bunt by John Warren, making a wild throw to first, allowing Luke Sutton to score and give Wooster a 7-1 lead.

"Mario Perez pitched well, but that four-run sixth inning broke our backs," Schmidt said.

Karpen added another solo home run in the eighth to make it 8-1.

"Give Wooster credit," Schmidt said. "They're a good club and we're very familiar with them, having played them in Florida (in early spring). We had runners on second and third with nobody out (in the fourth). Against a pitcher like that, you have to score at least one."

Center fielder Hodges went 2-for-3 and was the only Carthage player with multiple hits in the game. McDowell and Tanner Hall limited the Red Men to eight hits. Right fielder Trevor Whately hit a two-out triple in the seventh, but was stranded when Eickmeyer struck out.

Perez was reached for six runs (all earned) on 10 hits and two walks in 5⅓ innings. Kieffer allowed four hits and a run in 1⅔ innings and Tim Keyes allowed a hit and a run in one inning.