Photo by Chris Drummond: Marshall's Andrew Wallen rounds the bases as he hits a three run home run in a 6-2 season finale victory over the Owatonna Huskies on Thursday evening.

MILROY — The Marshall Tigers baseball team defeated the Owatonna Huskies in their regular-season finale 6-2 on Thursday evening.

The first two innings saw no score between both teams, but in the top of the third, starting pitcher Tyler Maeyaert got into some trouble by walking the first two Huskies batters. A sacrifice moved the runners over to second and third with one out. Maeyaert struck out the next two batters to end the inning and keep the score at 0-0.

Then the Tigers bats woke up.

Zach Leibfried hit a ball past the third baseman for an RBI single. Then Andrew Wallen hit a three-run homer to extend Marshall’s lead to 4-0. The scoring for the Tigers continued in the inning with Ezra Maurice getting an RBI single, chasing the starter out of the game for the Huskies.

After a 1-2-3 inning for Owatonna, Maeyaert led off with a single for Marshall but was thrown out attempting to steal third. Lincoln Graven got a single to extend the inning and Wallen would single as well. The Tigers had runners on the corners with two outs with Coby Brownlee at bat. The Huskies had a bad throw to first base, scoring Graven from third and making it 6-0 Tigers.

In the top of the fifth inning, Marshall gave up their first run on an infield single. After the hit, the Huskies had runners on first and second with one out. Owatonna executed a double steal, shifting the runners to 2nd and 3rd. Mitchell Seykora drew a walk and loaded the bases up. Maeyaert struck out the next batter and got a fly out to end the inning with Marshall up 6-1.

The Tigers once again got into a situation in the top of the seventh, after allowing a run that trimmed their lead to four, with the bases loaded and the tying run at the plate. However, it was another crisis adverted as Karson Rowe got his sixth strikeout in relief and secured the victory for the Tigers, 6-2.

“We pitched really well today between Maeyaert and Rowe,” Pollock said. “We had that big inning where we scored five in the fourth and never really looked back after that. It has been a tough spring for us and you never can get to the final product if you can’t work on things. Now we’ve kinda had a full season and it feels good. We played really well today and it feels like we are now hitting our stride. The post-game message was correcting a couple of mistakes we can clean up. For the most part, thought we played a clean game. A lot of praise for Maeyaert and Wallen, are two seniors who led the way today.”

Leibfried finished with two hits and an RBI. Wallen also had two hits including a home run. Maurice had an RBI single as well.

“I am always thinking fastball, ” Wallen said.” Then I saw the fastball and got a good piece of it. Saw it go over the wall and it felt good. We regrouped from last night, so that was good to see. We played a pretty clean game too. As one of the senior leaders on this team, I want to set a good example for the younger guys so they can continue on for next year.”

Maeyaert threw five innings and only allowed one run in the victory. Karson Rowe came in for the save and pitched the final two innings also only allowing one run.

The Marshall Tigers will now await their seeding in the Section 2AAA playoff bracket. Marshall is projected to receive a high seed and host the first round of the playoffs starting next Wednesday.