Pitching leads Marquette to junior-high state championship

EAST PEORIA — One week before, the Marquette Academy junior-high softball team brought home the Illinois Elementary School Association (IESA) Class 1A state softball championship.

This past weekend, the junior-high baseball Knights added another state championship plaque to the Marquette trophy case.

Riding dominant pitching, Marquette's seventh- and eighth-graders followed up Friday's 6-0 shutout of Peoria Hollis with a 5-0 blanking of Effingham St. Anthony in Saturday's semifinals and a six-inning, 10-0 crushing of Normal Metcalf in the IESA Class 1A state championship game later Saturday at EastSide Centre to score MA's second junior-high state title this fall season.

"I think (the baseball club's run to the state title) started last year, with us having a lot of seventh-graders and going down to (IESA) state," said head coach Brad Waldron. "We had six seventh-graders, two eighth-graders and one sixth-grader starting for us, and we took third. I think that was a huge confidence-builder in terms of what they could do. ...

"They bonded well, they played well, and they did well. It's a fun time."

While Marquette scored plenty of runs, pitching was the name of the game for the Knights.

Following Aidan Thompson's complete-game shutout of Hollis on Friday, Marquette gave the ball to starter Logan Nelson (win, 4 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 4 BB, 5 K) and reliever Tom Durdan (save, 3 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 1 BB, 5 K) in Saturday's shutout victory. With a three-run first inning and two-run fifth, the offense supported their pitchers highlighted by a pair of hits from Durdan, additional hits from Nelson and Carson Zellers, and two runs scored by Nelson.

That "W" sent the Knights on to the 1A state title game, with Taylor Waldron taking the ball there and continuing the shutout streak with no runs, three hits and one base on balls allowed while striking out 10 over his six innings.

"We went with Aidan and a defensive lineup right off the bat," Coach Waldron said, "and he took care of business. Then we went with Logan — who throws hard, has a nice curve and is a heck of a hitter — and Tommy Durdan came in to relieve him and got it done.

"Then we went from there to Taylor, my boy, who was our catcher most of the tournament. I wasn't sure how that'd go, but we started him in the championship game, and he threw lights-out.

"There aren't many teams that have two pitchers like that, much less three or four, and I probably could've thrown two more pitchers and we would've been just fine."

The Knights scored in the first, third, fifth and sixth innings of the title game to set up the 10-run rule, paced by a 4-for-4, three-RBI, three-runs-scored performance including a home run from Nelson. Durdan added a double and two runs scored, Charlie Mullen, Waldron, Alex Graham and Zellers all added hits, with Durdan, Primo Pattelli and Thompson scoring two runs apiece.

Marquette closes with an 18-1 record.

The Knights state champion roster includes head coach Brad Waldron and assistants Matt Nelson, Brian Bressner and Mike Graham, as well as players Gabe Almeda, Pete McGrath, Carson Zellers, Aidan Thompson, Caden Eller, Daniel Hoffman, Primo Pattelli, Henry McGrath, Andrew Hamm, Alex Graham, Taylor Waldron, Charlie Mullen, Tom Durdan and Logan Nelson.