OTTAWA – It may have been surprising for the Marquette Crusaders, a team that averaged more than nine runs a game last season, to manage only two hits and one run in last week’s season-opening loss to Coal City.
But Monday against Newark, again at Masinelli Field, the Crusaders seemed to be pretty much back to normal.
Coach Todd Hopkins’ team batted around in each of the first three innings, clubbing 15 hits against three Norsemen pitchers, while Aiden Thompson and Carson Zellers limited the visitors to just a pair of hits in a 17-2, four-inning Marquette victory.
The top three batters in the Marquette order – Logan Nelson, Tommy Durdan and Krew Bond – collected three hits apiece and drove in a combined five runs. Meanwhile, Thompson fanned four and surrendered just two unearned runs in his three innings of work before Zellers came in for the final frame, striking out the side on 10 pitches, as the Crusaders evened their record at 1-1 on the year.
For Newark, Caden Wheeler suffered the loss on the bump, permitting 10 runs on 12 hits in the first two innings. Jake Kruser and Landon Begovac each threw an inning of relief, giving up five and two runs, respectively.
“Our kids came in, put the ball in play, made them make plays like we have to do and limited our strikeouts,” Hopkins said. “It’s gonna take a while for the bats to come around. We’d only hit on the field one time, so getting depth perception here is a lot different that hitting in the cage, everything’s on top of you and here there’s a backdrop that you have to adjust to … Today we weren’t flashy, but we did what we had to do.”
Thompson tossed a 1-2-3 first, but got touched for two runs in the second when Jackson Walker was hit by a pitch, Clay Friestad reached on an error, then both scored on a groundout by Payton Wills and a base hit by Begovac.
He came back with a four-batter third, allowing just a single to Joe Martin. Zellers was as dominant in his frame.
“Sometimes that wind hurts you, sometimes it helps,” Thompson said. “Obviously, it kills the speed of the fastball a bit and you don’t want to leave anything hanging they can drive, but with the curveball and the splitter, it really helps the ball dive on batters. I’m feeling good about today, for sure.”
By then, Marquette had a 4-0 lead. Both Nelson and Durdan doubled on the first pitch they saw from Wheeler for one run, then Bond singled in another. Keaton Davis and Thompson plated the other two with singles to center field.
But the Cru padded the 4-2 edge with six in their second. A Nelson triple started it, then was followed by a Durdan RBI single, a run-scoring double by Bond, a bloop single by Sam Mitre and an RBI single by Charlie Mullen.
Mitre alertly crossed an uncovered home plate for the fourth run on Ethan Price’s foul pop-up to first before Zellers and Nelson singled in the final two runs.
Against Kruser in the third, Marquette added five more runs, scoring on a fielder’s choice, a wild pitch, a bases-loaded walk to Thompson and a dropped third strike. Finally, in the home fourth, Begovac walked five straight to force in the game-ending two runs.
“Against a good team like Marquette, you have to locate,” Newark coach Josh Cooper said. “I left Caden out there to get him confidence in throwing strikes and once you get that, you have to locate better because good teams like this are gonna hit. I can’t take anything away from Marquette, they hit well. It was just one of those days where things didn’t go our way.
“I love the way the guys fought … And I love that the first half of our schedule is so tough. That will get us ready for conference and the postseason and that’s what’s most important. I hope by then we won’t be the same team we were today.”