Class 1A state baseball: Marquette senior Carson Zellers earns bragging rights for himself, team

PEORIA – Marquette senior Carson Zellers stood on the concourse at Dozer Park on Saturday afternoon holding on tightly to the Class 1A baseball state championship trophy with a smile from ear to ear.

The smile, the pats on the back, the words of congratulations and the trophy – all well earned.

“I remember coming here in 2019 and watching my brother, Luke Couch, and his teammates win this,” Zellers said as he gazed at the trophy. “Since that day I hoped I’d get a chance to go through what they went through. Now I did, and I’m at loss to find words about how I’m feeling right now. This is just awesome.

“Luke doesn’t have bragging rights anymore, and now he can finally stop talking about his title. Now I’ve got one of my own.”

The right-handed Zellers helped Marquette to its second state title in the past five years by tossing a complete-game, four-hitter with five strikeouts in a 6-2 victory over Altamont.

“Everything, all my pitches, location, it was all working as good as it has been all season today. I felt really solid as I warmed up. I obviously had some nerves, but once the game started, I was all good.”

—  Carson Zellers, Marquette senior

“From the time we completed the [semifinal] game [against Jacksonville Routt] yesterday until we got here today and I started warming up felt like two days,” Zellers said of the anticipation of having a chance to pitch his team to the title. “I haven’t been able to sit still since the end of the semifinal. I tried getting some sleep last night, but it was tough.”

Like most of his starts this season, Zellers said he was feeling good right from the start.

“Everything, all my pitches, location, it was all working as good as it has been all season today,” said Zellers, who finished the season with a 9-1 record, 1.48 ERA and 90 strikeouts in 14 games. “I felt really solid as I warmed up. I obviously had some nerves, but once the game started, I was all good.”

The game was scoreless through four innings until Marquette plated one run in the fifth, then added four in the sixth – three after a dropped pop-up with two outs led to three runs scoring.

“I was just hunting for outs from the start,” Zellers said. “I just wanted to limit [Altamont] to as little as possible, and I knew we would eventually get a couple runs. Getting the one run in the fifth really pumped me up. I know it was only run, and I knew [Altamont’s] top four or five guys can really hit, but I really felt I had good enough stuff today to make that one run hold up if I needed to. Then we got the break in the fifth, made it 5-0, and from there I was just trying to make sure I stayed in the strike zone as much as possible.”

Fellow senior Charlie Mullen said the entire team knew how good Zellers was pitching and was just trying to find a way to get him some run support.

“I feel like in close games, like today was early, you just have to remind yourself to relax,” Mullen said. “I think we all knew that we were going to put together something with the bats, but we just all kept talking about staying with what we do and what had gotten us to this point. To be honest, I never felt like anyone was pressing or trying to do too much. I guess the tough thing was we all knew how well Carson was pitching, and we just wanted to get some runs to make his job a little easier. We finally did.”

Altamont was able to scratch a pair of runs off Zellers in the bottom of the seventh with one out, but the senior ace was able to get a strike out looking and a pop out to finish off the contest and start the celebration.

“Carson was awesome today. Man was he good,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said. “But that said, he’s been awesome all season and really his whole career for us. When a pitcher can change speeds and hit spots consistently like Carson can, he’s going to awful tough to beat. He showed that today.”