OTTAWA – Marquette’s Aiden Thompson certainly didn’t need the help of a 22 mph wind blowing from right to left across home plate to make his curveball effective, but he’s not going to turn down a little extra bite either.

The Crusaders junior used that breaking ball to limit Bishop McNamara to two runs on seven hits and one walk while striking out eight in Marquette’s 12-2, six-inning, nonconference victory at Masinelli Field on Wednesday afternoon.

Thompson would have likely pitched the seventh had his teammates not posted five runs in the bottom of the sixth – the final one by Julian Alexander on Tommy Durdan’s game-ending RBI single – to end the game early. Beau Ewers collected three hits and drove in three, and Logan Nelson had a big two-run triple to help keep the Crusaders (10-0) perfect for the season.

“I knew as soon as I stepped on that mound that this was my day,” said Thompson, who only struggled in the second inning when he allowed four hits but only one run. “I knew the defense had my back, too. I wanted to go out there again and get a seven-inning game in, but Tommy had a heck of a hit to end the game. We were hitting the snot out of the ball all game, and it’s nice to have all those runs on the board, too.”

“Aiden did a real good job,” Crusaders coach Todd Hopkins said. “He was able to get his breaking ball over. The fastball was spotted up and used a couple of good changeups, and when they strung a couple of hits together, he kept his composure, and we did a pretty good job defensively behind him.”

Thompson admitted that pitching with a lead helped, something Marquette gave him off of Irish starter Dalton Kosteka in the first with Beau Ewers’ first RBI hit and a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch by Carson Zellers. After Bishop McNamara (2-6) cut that lead in half on an RBI double by Caden Martin in the second, two Irish errors helped restore it on a run-scoring hit by Hayden McKenna in the third.

Beau Ewers added a two-run double in the fourth, and Nelson’s two-RBI triple to right in the fifth made it 7-2.

In the game-ending sixth against reliever Landon Provost, Beau Ewers singled, moved up on two wild pitches as Brady Ewers walked, and scored when McKenna’s hard grounder was erred. After Zellers singled to load the bases, Taylor Waldron hit a sacrifice fly before a wild pitch, and an error allowed McKenna and Zellers to score.

That’s when Durdan followed an Alexander hit-by-pitch and a Nelson walk with the final hit to left field.

“We didn’t get a bunch of hits, and their starter was pretty good, threw hard with a nice breaking ball, but we managed to stay hot,” Hopkins said. “I was worried that the first inning was going to come back to haunt us when we had second and third with no outs and left the bases jacked, but we did a better job today of putting the bat on the ball.

“This was a nice win today, showing some heart and toughness.”

Michael O’Connor had two of the seven hits off Thompson and Provost an RBI groundout.

“[Kosteka] did a pretty decent job today, but we sure didn’t give him any help out there. We weren’t ready to play today,” McNamara coach Kurt Quick said. “I know it’s an hour-and-a-half drive, but we have to do a better job of being mentally ready to play against good teams like this. Otherwise, this is what happens. Credit Marquette. They have a really nice team, like every year.

“That’s why we wanted to play them, to see good pitching, and we did today. Their pitcher kept us off-balance with his curveball. We were up there guessing on a lot of stuff, so kudos to him.”