Baseball: Crusaders romp in sectional opener over Chicago Christian

OTTAWA – Marquette Academy baseball coach Todd Hopkins often says of his team’s next opponent, usually a tough one when it comes to this point in the season, that it will have to play “perfect” for a chance to win or even compete.

On Wednesday afternoon in the Class 2A sectional semifinal, the Crusaders came pretty close to that perfect effort, while its foe, Palos Heights Chicago Christian, did not.

Marquette saw an early 2-0 lead disappear when the Knights scored three runs in the second and third innings, but it bounced right back by taking advantage of two errors, two walks and a hit batsman to regain the advantage with four runs in the home third without the benefit of a hit.

While sophomore pitcher Taylor Waldron blanked Christian the rest of the way, Jake Thomas helped pad the lead with a two-run inside-the-park home run in the fifth, then capped a five-run sixth with a walk-off RBI double to give the Crusaders a 13-3 victory at Masinelli Field.

The decision sends the Crusaders (16-3) into Friday’s 4:30 p.m. sectional championship game in Coal City against the Coalers, who defeated Manteno, 10-9, in the other semifinal.

“I’m proud of the kids. They battled, they added on and at the end finished it off.”

—  Marquette Academy coach Todd Hopkins

“I’m proud of the kids. They battled. They added on and at the end and finished it off,” said Hopkins, whose program, when last in 2A in 2014, won the Herscher Sectional, 3-2, over Chicago Christian before falling, 2-0, to Westmont at the Benedictine Supersectional. “Taylor pitched a great game again … That was big because we didn’t have Luke (Couch) or Logan (Nelson) available today (after pitching Monday). In fact, (Aiden) Thompson was next up to pitch for us if we needed him, so we’ll have all three of them available on Friday and we may need them, the way those teams hit the baseball.

“We’re going to have to play better on Friday, for sure … but we’ve been the underdog here for the last two weeks, and you know what? I kinda like it, so we’ll just keep going, keep plugging away and see what happens.”

Consecutive singles by Nick Melvin, Nelson and Couch drove in a pair of runs in the home first, but Christian (24-4) bounced back with a Ryan Stuursma sacrifice fly in the second and an RBI triple by Tommy Schaaf and a run-scoring single by Brian Huttner in the third to take a 3-2 edge.

Waldron shut the door after that, however, retiring 10 of the next 12 hitters he faced.

His teammate got him the lead back in their half without getting a hit against CC starter and losing pitcher Jon Castor. Melvin was hit by a pitch, stole second and after Nelson and Couch both walked to load the bases, came in on a wild pitch. On Beau Ewers infield bouncer, Nelson beat the throw home to give MA the lead. Couch then scored on another wild pitch and Grant Waldron drove in the fourth run with an erred grounder.

On the most exciting play of the day, Hayden McKenna singled with two outs and Thomas, hitting ninth, drove the ball over the center fielder’s head. He raced around and never stopped, sliding into home ahead of the high throw to make it 8-3.

Thomas capped the big sixth. After runs came in on an error, a run-scoring double by Brady Ewers, RBI singles by Shane Reynolds and McKenna, the senior slapped the first pitch to left field to score McKenna’s courtesy runner Tom Durdan all the way from first base with the closing tally.

Thomas, McKenna and Nelson all had two of the Cru’s 10 hits against four Knights pitchers.

“This was the worst game we’ve played all year,” said Christian coach Bob Schaaf. “That was the worst pitching we’ve had all year, the worst defense we’ve played all year and those were our two strongest suits all season. It’s unbelievable.

“Marquette put a lot of pressure on us and the stuff we’ve been doing fundamentally right all season long, we just kinda fell apart there for a little bit. I knew after the first inning, we’d hit, we’d come back and we did, but at the end there was a letdown. Credit Marquette for being tough outs, putting the bat on the ball and forcing our pitchers and our defense to work a little harder.

“Today was just one of those days when our strengths became our weaknesses. When that happens, it’s anybody’s day.”