Anthony Couch pitches Marquette past Serena in regional semifinal

OTTAWA – When a pitcher finds his rhythm, he is usually tough to beat.

That was the case for Marquette junior Anthony Couch in Wednesday’s Class 1A Marquette Regional semifinal against Serena at Masinelli Field.

In 5⅓ innings on the bump, Couch scattered four hits, allowed just one run with two walks and 11 strikeouts. Alec Novotney came on to strike out all five batters he faced, and the subsectional top seed Marquette (29-3) advanced with a 9-1 win over No. 9 Serena (6-19).

“I felt like I was in a good rhythm all game,” Couch said. “The only thing I wanted to make sure I did was not work too fast or too slow, I just wanted to keep a nice even pace. I felt really good even just starting to get warmed up today and just relaxed. Today was one of those days where I felt like I could throw any of my pitches in any count, location or situation. We were able to get a couple runs early and that helped me relax even more.”

Marquette moves on to the championship at 11 a.m. Saturday against the winner of Thursday’s semifinal between Newark and Somonauk.

“Anthony threw the ball awesome and had a great command with his curveball,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said. “His last outing he threw well, and it carried over to today. He just did what we ask of all our pitchers and that’s pound the strike zone.”

Marquette grabbed the lead for good in the first as Griffin Dobberstein lined a triple to right-center off Serena senior starter Beau Raikes and scored on a wild pitch. The Crusaders made it 2-0 in the third as Sam Mitre singled with two outs, moved to second on a walk to Keaton Davis, to third on a passed ball and scored on a throwing error.

Serena cut the lead in half in the fourth as Payton Twait walked, moved to third on a base hit by Ryne DeBernardi and scored on a balk.

Marquette added a run in the fifth on a two-out RBI single by Couch, then after Raikes was relieved by Carter Meyer after reaching the pitch limit, a pair of errors opened the door for the hosts to plate six unearned runs – the big blow a bases-clearing double by Mitre.

Raikes, who set the program record for strikeouts in a season (104), finished allowing six hits, one earned run with four walks and eight strikeouts. He also had two of the Huskers’ four hits.

“Beau has been our go-to guy all year,” Serena coach Jeremy Foreman said. “He pitched very good for us as a junior, but this year he’s taken things to another level and just pitched with confidence. Today he was able to get ahead of hitters, and against a team like Marquette that’s what you have to do. All I asked of him today was to give us a chance and he did that.

“We just weren’t able to get a lot of guys on base, and the couple of times we had maybe something going, we just couldn’t get the next hit we needed. But credit Couch, he has a really sharp curveball and did a good job of just keeping us guessing. He was pretty locked in against us today.”

Dobberstein, Mitre and Couch all finished with two hits, while Jaxsen Higgins drove in a pair of runs.

“The Raikes kid threw an awesome game,” Hopkins said. “He was very impressive today.

“We had a couple of situations where we didn’t get bunts down, and that’s something that we’ll have to get fixed because the little things become that much more important the further you get in the postseason.”