Baseball: Alec Novotney’s arm, Sam Mitre’s bat lead Marquette past Henry

OTTAWA – The Marquette baseball team used a lethal combination against Henry-Senachwine in Monday’s Tri-County Conference game at Masinelli Field.

The Crusaders got a dominant pitching outing from sophomore Alec Novotney, a tape-measure homer from Sam Mitre and a solid dose of small ball and timely hitting to top the Mallards 10-0 in six innings.

Novotney allowed just five hits, no walks and struck out 11, including six looking.

“Today was one of those days where it was just put down a sign and I’ll throw it,” said Novotney, who didn’t allow an HSHS runner past second base and threw 60 of his 84 pitches for strikes. “I felt good all the way through warmups to the end of the game.

“My curveball was probably my best pitch and my put-away today. I really felt confident I could get a strike in any count with it. I felt like I was throwing my curveball to set up my fastball. So I guess [I] pitched a little backwards today than my normal.”

Marquette (12-0 overall, 5-0 TCC) opened the scoring in the second inning against Henry-Senachwine (5-8-1, 4-4) as Griffin Dobberstein, Anthony Couch and Grant Dose walked against Mallards starter Lance Kiesewetter. Dobberstein touched home plate after a wild pitch.

In the third, Mitre blasted a full-count pitch from Kiesewetter over the fence down the left-field line for his third homer of the season to make it 2-0.

“To be very honest, I was just trying to put the ball in play, trying to put the ball out there and see what happens,” Mitre said. “I was just trying to find a way to get on base, but with a full count I figured I was going to get a pretty good pitch to hit. That’s what happened.

“It felt amazing off the bat.”

Marquette added two runs in the fourth off HSHS reliver Zachary Barnes. Charlie Mullen led off with a single and later scored on a base hit by Dose before the latter stole second, moved to third on a groundout and scored on a passed ball. In the fifth for the Cru, Dobberstein walked, stole second and scored on a single by Mullen to make it 5-0.

“(Kiesiwetter) is a great pitcher, no doubt about that, but we were able to get a couple runs early. I thought overall we executed pretty well today other than we have some things to clean up on the basepaths,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said. “I thought Griffin played a nice game at short, Alec really threw the ball well, Sam hit the ball well, and we were able to get some timely hitting and mixed in a little small ball.

“We did what we needed to do today, and now we move on to the next one.”

Marquette scored five runs in the sixth with Mitre (double), Dobberstein (single), Couch (hit by pitch) and Mullen (groundout) all recording RBIs.

Mitre and Mullen both finished with two hits and two RBIs, while Keaton Davis doubled for Marquette. Kiesiwetter singled in the fourth and sixth for two of the Mallards five hits.

“(Marquette’s) pitcher did a great job today,” said Henry-Senachwine coach Ted Rowe. “(Novotney) was getting three pitches over for strikes and was throwing his offspeed pitches for strikes early and late in the count. When a good pitcher is on like he was today, it’s going to be hard for any team to get much going.

“We were able to get a couple guys on here and there and then get them to second, but we just weren’t able to string anything together after that. This was the first of four conference games this week for us, so I’m just trying to move things around pitching-wise to give us the best chance to win.”

The teams are scheduled to rematch in Henry on Tuesday afternoon.