AMATEUR BASEBALL: Marshall A’s use timely hits to beat Cottonwood
MARSHALL – The Marshall A’s used a pair of multiple run innings and strong pitching to earn a 10-1 victory over the Cottonwood Cardinals Friday night at Legion Field.
Cottonwood got things started in the top of the first inning when Seth Boerboom reached on an error and later scored on another error. But the A’s responded with a four-run bottom half of the frame, taking a 4-1 lead. After a single by Nate Hoeft and Jordan Kontz was hit by a pitch, Derek Branson got an RBI single to go through to put Marshall on the board. Jon Ellis followed that up with an RBI single of his own before Marshall scored another run on an error. Barry Meyer then got the third RBI single of the inning to put the A’s up 4-1 after one.
Both teams would then settle down on the offensive end, as neither team would find the scoreboard for the next four innings and a half innings.
The A’s would then have their second big offensive output of the game in the bottom of the sixth, scoring five runs to break the game wide open. After a leadoff single by Matt ONeal, Kontz would reach on another Cottonwood mistake before Branson drew a walk to load the bases. Ellis then stepped up and delivered an RBI sacrifice fly before Meyer smacked a two-run double to make it 7-1. The A’s would add two more runs later in the inning to bring it to 9-1.
Marshall then scored the game’s final run in the bottom of the seventh thanks to an RBI double by Ellis.
Ellis led the way for the A’s with a pair of hits and three RBIs while Meyer also had a couple of hits and three RBIs.
Travis McGlauflin earned the victory on the hill for the A’s, going four innings while giving up just one run on two hits while striking out four.
McGlauflin said the key throughout the night was getting hitters to go after pitches they didn’t want and get the ball on the ground for the defense to make plays.
“I was just letting my ball run and throwing strikes,” McGlauflin said. “I let them hit it into the ground and get outs.”
Jacob Neu took the loss for the Cardinals, going two innings while allowing four runs on five hits.
Cottonwood manager Jason Fischer said they just struggled to put contact on the ball and still have a youthful team that hasn’t seen much playing time with each other yet this season.
“We played okay. Marshall outplayed us and pitched well and made the plays after the first inning. We’re young and still trying to put some things together,” Fischer said. “We struggled to hit the ball today; it’s early for us, as we’ve only played two games and haven’t played any games back-to-back or within a week long and most of our kids are out of high school now so they haven’t had a lot of reps.”
Marshall (2-0) will face Raymond on Wednesday while Cottonwood will face the Milroy Irish on June 2.
Marshall 10, Cottonwood 1
Cottonwood 100 000 000 — 1 3 4
Marshall 400 005 100 — 10 11 2
HITTING: Marshall (Ellis 2 H, 3 RBI; Meyer 2 H, 3 RBI); Cottonwood (Plotz 1 H).
PITCHING (IP-H-R-ER-BB-SO): Marshall (McGlauflin 4.0-2-1-1-0-4; Mettling 3.0-1-0-0-1-1; Branson 2.0-0-0-0-0-3); Cottonwood (Neu 2.0-5-4-4-0-0; Schuster 4.0-4-5-5-3-2; Boerboom 2.0-2-1-1-0-0).