Baseball: Taylor Waldron’s efficiency leads Marquette past Streator

OTTAWA – Give the Marquette Crusaders an inch, they’ll take a mile. But then, the way Taylor Waldron was pitching to Streator on Friday afternoon, even that inch would have been good enough.

Waldron was on top of his game against the Bulldogs at Masinelli Field, limiting the Class 3A foe to just two hits and no walks while striking out eight in the five-inning shutout in a 10-0 MA victory.

The junior ace was incredibly efficient throughout, surrendering only back-to-back hits – a double to Sean McGurk and a single to Brady Grabowski – in the fourth inning, finishing that frame with only 40 pitches thrown and for the game facing just one over the minimum number of hitters.

Meanwhile, the Crusaders took advantage of control problems for SHS starter Jake Luckey, scoring five runs in the second inning on five walks and only one hit, that being a bases-loaded, three-run double by freshman Sam Mitre.

“The temperature today was what, 70 degrees out? That was the warmest its been in any of my starts this year and it felt great to be that warm,” Waldron said. “On warm days, I feel like have a little more on my fastball and that was the case today … We all saw the ball well today. Hopefully we’ll get on the train going from here, but the last two games, we’ve been pretty good with the bats.”

Waldron helped himself with two hits and an RBI, Tommy Durdan celebrated his return from injury with a two-run single out of the No. 2 spot in the order and former No. 2 hitter Carson Zellers scored three runs from ninth in the order to help the Cru lift their record to 21-2 on the season.

“Taylor pitched extremely well today against a very good hitting team,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said. “He did a nice job, we made the plays behind him and got him a lead to work with. We played decent baseball today. The bats could be a little better, but we’ll get there. We have to play that way (taking advantage of walks), but we also did a better job with two strikes putting it in play today.

“I wasn’t happy with where we were at after Tuesday, but the coaches got into them and kids responded. Now we just have to keep that going next week to build toward the (regional) week after that.”

Luckey’s difficulties started with one out in the second when he walked Waldron, Gabe Almeda, Zellers, Julian Alexander and, after one out, Logan Nelson, forcing in two runs. Mitre then lined the first pitch from reliever Cole Martin for a double down the left-field line for a 5-0 Cru edge.

Marquette netted three runs in the third on an Alexander sacrifice fly and a two-RBI single by Durdan, then added an RBI single by Waldron in the fourth and Mitre’s game-ending RBI, his fourth of the game, in the home fifth.

“Jake had a pretty decent first inning, then it was really just one of those things,” said Streator coach Beau Albert, his club now 11-7 this season. “His starts this year have been limited, but has pitched in relief a lot and done well for us. He said he lost the feel of the baseball and started spiking some, so at some point we had to keep it from becoming a mental thing, to take him out, let him reset, through a bullpen and see where he goes from there.

“The Waldron kid, he’s a top-notch 1A-2A pitcher and I told our guys after, that’s the kind of guy we’re gonna have to beat to advance in the regional, even at our level in 3A. The second time through the order, we put some better swings on the ball, but it was too inconsistent. He got ahead of us and then started mixing in that breaking ball and that’s hard to hit when he adds that velocity to it.”