Baseball: Mitre’s hot bat, momentum lift Marquette over St. Bede

PERU – One might say that it was a double by Sam Mitre that turned the momentum of the day toward the Marquette side, but St. Bede did a little bit to help it topple in that direction not once, but twice.

In the completion of a suspended game from Thursday in Ottawa, Mitre slammed a one-out two-bagger in the bottom of the sixth inning, and a couple of SBA errors allowed pinch runner Payton Gutierrez to score the only run of the Crusaders’ 1-0 victory over the Bruins.

Marquette maintained that momentum into the regularly scheduled contest behind a four-RBI performance by Mitre and the solid pitching of starter Alec Novotney and Game 1 winner Carson Zellers, stepping away from the Tri-County Conference clashes with a second victory, this time 13-3.

Zellers went all seven innings in the suspended game, surrendering four hits and two walks while striking out five. Novotney went the first five innings of the nightcap, striking out five, walking one and giving up those three runs in the fourth before Zellers returned to close the door with two shutout innings.

“It’s weird playing a two-inning game. Really, really weird,” said Marquette coach Todd Hopkins, his team now 15-1, 7-1 in the TCC. “But Sam got the big double, we pinch ran Gut, and thank goodness he’s fast and runs hard because when he bobbled it, he scored and Carson and our defense took care of the rest. … When you win a game like that, you have to carry the momentum, and we did. We started well, had a little lull when they got three, but we responded with four and kept tacking on like we needed to do. Alec was workmanlike today.

“Our defense was excellent. We have to do that because we don’t have pitchers that will strike out 20. We make teams put it in play and let our defense work. … I’m really proud of the guys getting two big wins against a very good team.”

Marquette 1, St. Bede 0

Picking up the suspended game called because of rain after Zellers and Gino Ferrari each pitched five scoreless innings Thursday, Zellers worked around a two-out double by Luke Tunnell in the top of the sixth Monday. In the bottom against Seth Ferrari, Mitre choked up and lined a two-strike pitch to the fence in right.

Ferrari then tried to pick Gutierrez off second, but that errant throw sent the Cru senior to third, and he scored when it was bobbled in center field.

The Bruins got the tying run to third in the seventh, but Zellers stifled the threat.

Marquette 13, St. Bede 3

Mitre helped things start rolling MA’s way with an RBI single off SBA starter Alan Spencer in the top of the first before the Crusaders plated four more in the second. That rally started with a walk to Jaxsen Higgins, a double by Grant Dose and a run-scoring hit by Novotney, with other runs in on a sacrifice fly by Mitre, a wild pitch and a Bedan error.

St. Bede (12-11, 4-5) cut the deficit to 5-3 in the fourth with five of its eight hits: a single by Gus Burr, a double by Nathan Husser, an RBI two-base hit by Tunnell and singles by Evan Entrican and Geno Dinges, the latter driving in a run.

But the Crusaders added four runs in the fifth off Seth Ferrari on a two-run single by Higgins, an RBI grounder by Dose and a sacrifice fly by Novotney. A wild pitch and a run-scoring fielder’s choice by Charlie Mullen added two more in the sixth against AJ Hermes, and a two-RBI double by Mitre close the scoring in the seventh off Ranbir Saini.

“We’ve been in kind of a funk the last couple weeks and keep finding ways to shoot ourselves in the foot. Today was a new one,” St. Bede coach Bill Booker said. “We came in hoping to scratch out a run and come away with that first game, but we couldn’t get the key hit. We competed for one inning today, pretty much, the one where we got it to 5-3 and it was a game again. But we walk a guy, throw a ball away and it’s just compounded.

“There are times we look like we’re trying to do too much, and when you do that and it’s out of your norm, it hurts you. You can’t give extra outs, you can’t walk people, especially against teams like Marquette.”