Baseball Concludes Season With Two Losses at MWC Tournament

by Nathan Baliva

MONMOUTH, Ill. (05/11/2025) — The Monmouth College baseball team lost two games for the Midwest Conference Championship on Saturday. The Fighting Scots (19-22) dropped the opener 16-4 to Beloit and the Buccaneers won the title with an 11-4 win in game two.

In the 2 p.m. game, Roy Ralston (Macon, Illinois) pitched out of a bases loaded jam in the first inning after allowing a leadoff single and two walks. The Scots went in order in the first and Beloit took a 2-0 lead in the second with a leadoff walk and 2-run homer. They loaded the bases on a double, walk and bunt single before scoring four more runs in the inning.

Raul Guillermo (Miami, Florida) led off the second with a double and Clayton Matkovic (Sherrard, Illinois) beat out an infield single. After a fielders' choice by Aidan Parkins (Monmouth, Illinois), Aiden Scott (Carrollton, Texas) drove home Guillermo with a ground out.

Beloit hit two doubles in the third to lead 7-1. Matkovic walked to start the fourth and he moved to third on a single by Parkins. Beloit got a double play on the infield as Matkovic scored for a 7-2 game.

Beloit used a couple extra base hits to take a 10-2 lead in the fifth inning. Heath Hornke (Normal, Illinois) took over for Ralston on the mound and got out of the inning with a grounder to shortstop.

Daniel Lummus (New Port Richey, Florida) and Nate Reed (Chenoa, Illinois) both singled with one out in the fifth. With two down, Guillermo extended his hit streak to 18 games with a RBI single but a line drive ended the inning. .

A single started the seventh for Beloit and four straight walks put them on top 11-3 before Caleb Ochs (Royal, Illinois) came out of the bullpen. The Bucs scored while hitting in a double play to push the lead to 12-3. They added four runs in the ninth for the 16-3 finals.

Ralston (2-5) took the loss as he allowed 10 runs on 10 hits over 4 2/3 innings while striking out six and walking six.

GAME TWO

The teams turned around and played a winner-take-all game two a half hour later. Lummus led off with a double and he moved to third when Reed singled. Alexander Dye (Albuquerque, New Mexico) singled for a 1-0 lead and Reed scored on a single by Guillermo Matkovic put the Scots up 3-0 with a sacrifice fly .

Beloit scored two runs in the bottom of the inning against Brandon Coats (Mapleton, Illinois). Neither team scored in the second and Guillermo tied the Monmouth single-season home run record with his 11th of the season in the third inning The solo shot gave the Scots a 4-2 lead.

Beloit took the lead with five runs in the third inning. A bases loaded single put them on top 5-4 and they added two more runs before Owen Wolfe (Galesburg, Illinois) took over on the mound , An error put the Bucs up 7-4 and they added two more unearned runs in the fourth.

Monmouth's bats couldn't get much going and Beloit added a run against Nick Villa (El Segundo, California) in the seventh. They plated a final run in the eighth to win 11-4. Coats (3-1) took the loss.