Baseball: Bats hot from start, Marquette hits way past WFC

OTTAWA – Like every starting pitcher, Marquette Academy’s Aidan Thompson is just hoping his teammates can provide him a little bit of cushion when he takes the mound.

The Crusaders did that and much more for the senior right-hander in Tuesday’s Tri-County Conference contest against Woodland/Flanagan-Cornell at Masinelli Field.

Marquette (15-2, 8-1) sent 17 batters to the plate, the first eight recording hits, in a 12-run first inning in an eventual 16-0 victory over the Warriors in four innings for their sixth straight win.

“We came out and hit the ball hard right from the start, Adian pitched well, and we were able to get some guys in off the bench.”

—  Todd Hopkins, Marquette Academy baseball coach

“As a starting pitcher, I’m just hoping my guys can get me a couple of early runs to work with ... they really out did themselves today,” said Thompson, who allowed three hits and struck out six in three innings to earn the win.

“I was joking with them in the dugout about making me sit so long in between innings, but it was really fun to see all of them have good, successful at-bats. The only thing as a pitcher when one of those innings comes around is making sure you are staying warm and loose, along with having the mentality of shutting things down in the next half inning to get them back in batting.

“We all talked last night as a group about getting off to a good start after a couple of games last week when we didn’t. I’m not sure we could have started much better than we did today.”

Alec Novotney singled to start the first off WFC starter Carter Ewing, and Logan Nelson followed with an opposite-field double to left. Krew Bond then smacked a two-run triple, and Tommy Durdan an RBI single. Charlie Mullen, Sam Mitre, Ethan Price (RBI) and Keaton Davis all followed with singles before Carson Zellers walked. From there, Novotney tripled in a run, and Nelson doubled in another, with Mullen scoring a run on a groundout and Mitre adding an RBI base hit.

“We came out and hit the ball hard right from the start, Adian pitched well, and we were able to get some guys in off the bench,” MA coach Todd Hopkins said. “We talked a little bit on Friday at practice about getting off to better starts, but today was all on the kids. I’m sure they talked amongst themselves, and they came here ready to go.”

The Crusaders added three runs in the second on RBI singles by Nelson and Mitre and a sacrifice fly by Bond. In the third off Warriors’ reliever Ethan Schumm, hits by Alex Graham and Primo Pattelli (RBI) helped score Zellers.

Nelson finished 3 for 3 at the plate with two RBIs, with Novotney, Durdan, Mitre (two RBIs) and Price all collected a pair of hits. Mitre finished with three RBIs, while Ryan Peterson struck out two in finishing off the shutout in the fourth.

For WFC, which dropped to 5-10 overall and 4-6 in league play, Sam Schmitz doubled. Tucker Hill and Eric Miramontes each singled.

“Marquette hit the ball really well today, and there wasn’t much we could do to slow that down,” WFC coach Dan Essman said. “It didn’t seem to matter where our pitchers threw it, Marquette hit it. Hats off to them, they came into the game with a job to do, a plan on how to do it, and they did it well.

“I talked to the guys after the game that, while Marquette was solid at the plate and jumped on us right away, I felt like our demeanor dropped well below where it should have been. It was a tough situation, I get that, but I told them we needed to keep battling. Getting behind like we did today, that’s when you have to keep your head up even more and fight back any way you can.

“We’ll have practice [Wednesday] and get right back at it with them at our place on Thursday.”

Marquette is scheduled to host defending Class 2A champion Joliet Catholic on Wednesday. WFC will host the Crusaders on Thursday.