Baseball: Taylor Waldron, Marquette breeze past young Roanoke-Benson

OTTAWA – When Marquette’s Taylor Waldron is on top of his game, there’s not much an inexperienced team like Roanoke-Benson can do, and it showed on Monday at Masinelli Field.

Waldron, the reigning Times Baseball Player of the Year, breezed through four innings of work against the Rockets, allowing two hits and two walks while striking out 10 to lead the Crusaders to a 10-0, five-inning Tri-County Conference victory.

Logan Nelson came on to throw a scoreless fifth, and his teammates scored seven runs in the second inning – the key hit a bases-loaded, two-run double by Tommy Durdan – then closed it out with three in the fifth to move Marquette to 5-1 overall, 3-0 in the league.

A total of six of Waldron’s 10 strikeouts came on looking third strikes as he made good use of his 90-mph fastball and a hard-biting breaking ball that was as deceptive as he’s had it this season. He surrendered only a pair of two-out singles, to Isaiah Beyer in the first and Tucker Bond in the fourth.

“I started throwing later in the offseason, so I’m still building my arm up,” Waldron said. “But today I had good velo, and it will get better, and I had a good feel for the breaking ball, as good as the last time out.

“[The swinging strikeouts] tells me my command is good ,and that’s what I’m hoping for this early in the season, hitting spots.”

His mound opponent, sophomore Kody Knecht, got the red-hot Cru in order in the first, but then gave up a one-out double to Charlie Mullen to start the big second inning. An error on Keaton Davis’ hard grounder and a fielder’s choice by Ethan Price netted the first run before a single by Carson Zellers and a walk to Alec Novotney loaded the bases.

Durdan then drove in two runs with his two-bagger.

After Novotney scored on a wild pickoff throw to third base, walks to Nelson and Krew Bond filled the bags again for an RBI hit by pitch by Sam Mitre and a two-run single by Mullen, his second hit of the inning.

In the fifth against R-B reliever Drew Garrels, Zellers led off with a hit by pitch, followed by singles by Novotney and Durdan, a two-run double by Nelson and a run-scoring double by Bond.

“We hit some balls that were outs, and I don’t think we had a ton of hits, but we hit the ball well today,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said. “Their first pitcher was really good, has a live arm, threw hard, had a good breaking ball and a good change, hitting spots. He got us 1-2-3 in the first, but we got to him in the second and had good at-bats against him.

“Taylor looked good, and Logan, though he hasn’t thrown a whole lot, he settled in and had a good inning. When you see a team with that many strikeouts looking, it usually means they’re guessing, and as hard as he throws, you have to sit dead red [fastball], so when he’s hitting spots with his breaking ball, it freezes them a lot. Taylor had good command today, got ahead of hitters, good things usually happen.”

Roanoke-Benson dropped to 3-3, 2-1 in the conference.

“I said to [Knecht], ‘You’ve never faced a lineup like this one, have you?’ He said, ‘No,’ and I said, ‘Get used to it,’ Rockets coach Wade Hunter said. “I knew what we were facing today. We saw two of them today, and we’ll see another one [Aiden Thompson] tomorrow [at Roanoke]. We’re swinging the bats OK, though you couldn’t tell today because, in my opinion, Waldron is the best pitcher in the conference.

“We are a much better ballclub than we were last year. We have some younger guys that are going to figure it out, but we know what we’re up against when we play Marquette. We just have to play better, and we will. We’ll be fine.”