St. Bede left-hander Gino Ferrari has traditionally given the Marquette Crusaders trouble when he’s taken the mound against them, including starting against the Cru the last time the Class 1A state champs lost a baseball game one year ago.

And Marquette right-hander Alec Novotney? He’s given every high school lineup he’s faced fits for three and a half years.

That pitching matchup for Tuesday’s Tri-County Conference series opener suggested another competitive ballgame between the old rivals, and that’s just what the Bruins and Crusaders delivered in an eventual 6-1 Marquette victory.

It was the Cru’s 20th win in 20 games this season and 38th consecutive victory dating back to a loss to St. Bede exactly one year prior on April 28, 2025.

“You know, Gino’s had some success against them,” said St. Bede coach Bill Booker, whose Bruins beat Marquette 5-3 last April 28 with Ferrari starting and working 4⅔ innings in a no-decision, “and we thought, ‘What a great matchup today.’

“But those first two innings, we had [five] walks and a hit batsman and I don’t think [Marquette] had a hit but we find ourselves down 3-0. Those first couple innings we were on the verge of getting blown out ... but then we did a good job, got a couple guys on base, and we were a hit away from making it a ballgame.

“But you get five runs behind with Novotney pitching, it’s like a hundred.”

Marquette (20-0 overall, 9-0 Tri-County) is scheduled to visit St. Bede (13-7, 5-1) on Thursday to conclude the TCC series after Tuesday’s opener which the host Crusaders led from the bottom of the first inning on, but never quite managed to pull away.

Novotney was his usual overpowering self, allowing a handful of baserunners but not allowing any of them to reach third base until a passed ball set up his one run surrendered in the top of the sixth. The Valparaiso-bound Novotney finished throwing six innings and allowing just that one unearned run on six singles and no walks while striking out 10.

“He did a good job,” Hopkins said of his ace. “St. Bede’s a good ballclub, and their lefty kept us off-balance. We didn’t hit the ball real great, but we did enough to win the game, and we’ll see them again Thursday.”

His Bedan counterpart, Ferrari (3+ IP, 2 ER, 1 H, 7 BB, 3 K), was effectively wild for the most part. His three walks issued and throwing error in the home half of the first led to three quick Marquette runs, but it wasn’t until the third when the home team managed a hit against the southpaw, a Braxton Nelle infield single.

Nelle finished as the only Marquette player with two hits, his second a Texas-league RBI single off St. Bede reliever Alec Tomsha (3 IP, 1 ER, 3 H, 1 BB, 1 K) to drive home Caden Durdan in the fifth.

“Today I think it was just putting the ball in play,” Nelle said. “It didn’t have to be hard [contact], and if you put the ball to the ground [the defense] has to do three good things, like Hop says – field it, throw it, catch it again.

“It’s a lot easier for us to score when we have a lot of guys putting the ball in play, which we do a lot.”

Anthony Couch delivered a pair of RBIs without the benefit of a hit, Eason DeBernardi drove home one with a first-inning sacrifice fly, and leadoff man Grant Dose reached base in all four of his at-bats, scoring half of Marquette’s six runs.

St. Bede – which outhit its hosts 7-4 on the day – received two-hit performances from both Gus Burr and AJ Hermes, with Hermes driving Geno Dinges home for the Bruins’ lone run on a soft-lined, two-out single in the sixth.

Marquette quickly replied with its own run in the bottom of the sixth when Dose scored on an intentional first-and-third rundown double-steal, and reliever Griffin Dobberstein pitched a scoreless seventh to end the ballgame at just under two hours.