Baseball: Newark wins Little Ten pitchers’ duel over Serena, 2-0

SERENA – In a game that saw both starting pitchers, Newark’s Joe Martin and Serena’s Dylan Cartwright, pitch extremely well and go the distance, the Norsemen were able to manufacture a pair of runs in a 2-0 Little Ten Conference victory over the Huskers on Monday afternoon.

Newark improved to 14-5 overall and 11-0 in the Little Ten, while Serena fell to 11-9 and 8-3. The teams are scheduled to play again at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday in Newark.

Martin allowed only three hits, hit a batter and struck out 16 while walking none in the shutout effort.

“I’ll be honest, I really didn’t feel like my fastball was there today. It was sailing to the left from my release point,” said Martin, who threw 71 strikes on 98 pitches. “I relied a lot on my changeup, especially early in the count, and from there I was able to finish a lot with my slider.

“I didn’t have my best stuff today, but adjusting away from fastball and going with the two pitches that were working well was a big key for me to get through the complete game.”

Newark scored in the top of the first inning when Jake Kruser walked and stole second and third before touching home plate on a sacrifice fly by Martin.

The Norsemen added their final run in the seventh when Lucas Pasakarnis drew a walk, stole second, advanced to third on a throwing error and came across on Mitchell Kruser’s sacrifice fly to center.

In the middle five innings, Cartwright retired 15 of the 17 batters he faced. For the game, he allowed only two hits, one earned run and two walks, struck out nine and hit the strike zone on 59 of his 85 pitches.

“Hats off to him,” Newark coach Josh Cooper said of Cartwright. “He deserves all the credit he gets for today’s performance. I don’ t care how fast you throw or how many pitches you have, if you can get ahead of hitters like he did against us today, you’re more than likely going to have a good day, and he sure did for them.

“We’ve come to expect the type of outing Joe had today, including the strikeout total. He has thrown the ball exceptionally well for us all season, and I can’t say enough great things about that kid. He was really efficient as far as finding the strike zone, and when that happens with him, usually good things happen for our team.”

Although only having five batters reach base, Serena had a couple of good scoring chances against Martin. In the third, Bryce Shannon reached on a dropped-third strike, Tanner Faivre poked one of his two hits in the game to right, and Cam Figgins was hit by a pitch to load the bases. However, Martin was able to strike out the next batter to end the threat.

Then in the fifth, Cartwright sliced a base hit to right to start the inning, but a couple of failed sacrifice attempts-turned-strikeouts and a caught stealing followed to end the inning.

Serena also looked to have something going in the sixth when Faivre led off with a single to short right field. The throw for the out at first sailed high over the first baseman’s head, and Faivre started towards second. However, catcher Pasakarnis was there to back up the play, and the Norsemen were able to tag the runner trying to get back to first.

“We decided coming into today that Dylan was going to have to throw his curveball any time in the count,” Serena coach Chad Baker said. “We knew that if we threw too many fastballs, Newark was just going to sit on it and hit. Dylan doesn’t throw hard, but today we went mostly with the offspeed and tried to mix in a fastball here and there to keep them off-balance. He did a great job of that from start to finish.

“We had a couple of chances against Martin, and it just didn’t pan out for us. We just didn’t get that big hit we were looking for in the third and then didn’t execute after we had the leadoff guy get on in the fifth with a couple bunt attempts to move him over. The play to start the sixth is just baseball, not much Tanner could have done different.”