Photo by Jake McNeill Marshall first baseman Braxton Koster (middle) flips the ball to pitcher Owen Kesteloot during the seventh inning of a Section 2AAA baseball tournament game against New Ulm at American Legion Field in Marshall on Wednesday. Marshall socred eight fourth-inning runs to defeat the Eagles 9-5 and advance to the section quarterfinals against Mankato West on Saturday.

MARSHALL — An eight-run fourth inning gave the Marshall baseball team all the offense it needed to take down New Ulm in the first round of the Section 2AAA tournament on Wednesday at Legion Field. The No. 6 Eagles largely kept the third-seeded Tigers’ bats under wraps for the rest of the game, but weren’t able to rally ahead as the Tigers held on for a 9-5 win.

“I think there’s this continuous support between all of us and how we can work together as a team,” Marshall senior outfielder Deagan Maurice said. “When one person gets going, everyone just continues to follow after that.”

Marshall will now take on second-seeded Mankato West in the quarterfinals on Saturday at 11 a.m. while New Ulm will face off against No. 7 Jordan in the first round of the elimination bracket on Saturday at 2 p.m. Both games will be played in New Ulm, with the winner’s bracket game set to be played at Mueller Park and the elimination bracket game at Johnson Park. 

The win marks the second consecutive season that Marshall earned the No. 3 seed and defeated No. 6 New Ulm in the first round of the tournament. While the Tigers lost 5-0 to No. 2 Mankato East last year, they’ll look to find a better result this time around.

“I think if our pitching is good, we’ve got to clean up the defense, keep hitting well and I think everything will go the right way,” Maurice said.

The score was knotted up at one run apiece when the Marshall bats started to put everything together with an eight-run inning in the bottom of the fourth. Liam Kruse led off the inning with a double before Chase Alcorn reached on an error to drive in the go-ahead run. Josh Kraft then singled before a passed ball and a Braxton Koster RBI double made the score 4-1 in favor of the Tigers.

“We were really good with two strikes and we got some favorable hops in there,” Marshall head coach Chase Pollock said of the rally. “We put it in play and good things happened. We ran the bases really well and just took advantage of some miscues.”

The rally continued when Maurice was hit by a pitch and, after New Ulm substituted in Mitchell Hopp at pitcher for Kolton Achman, Levi Maeyaert walked to load the bases. Cooper Mensink then hit a sacrifice fly to score Koster on the inning’s first out and, with two outs, consecutive walks to Samuel Thor and Kruse drove in another run. A two-run single by Alcorn and an RBI single from Kraft ended the inning with a 9-1 Marshall lead. 

“We had a couple of errors, then a couple of walks, and then they got a couple of timely hits,” New Ulm head coach Mike Anderson said. “The baseball gods are going to pay a team for getting on base right away and made us pay for having errors.”

Kruse got the start for the Tigers, holding New Ulm to one unearned run on one hit over five innings. He struck out five batters without allowing a walk. In relief, Owen Kesteloot threw two innings for the Tigers, striking out three batters while giving up four unearned runs on two hits and a walk.

“The whole game flow was great when [Kruse] was in there. He was throwing strikes, getting ahead of hitters and did a great job today. We were lucky enough to get him out of there and keep him under the pitch count,” Pollock said. “We’ll see what happens going forward, but I’m happy for him in his last start here as a high school player.”

The Eagles made one final push in the top of the seventh inning. Owen Castleman and Ryan Rathmann reached base on consecutive Marshall errors and another Marshall error allowed Castleman to score New Ulm’s first run of the frame. Zach Hubbard then singled in Rathmann and, after a pair of Marshall errors, Tanner Backer drove in Hubbard on a ground out to cut the deficit to four runs with two outs. Yet, another ground out ended the game with the Eagles’ rally coming up short.

“When you look at the scoreboard, besides giving up eight runs in the fourth inning… we outscored them and outplayed them most of the game,” Anderson said. “We’ve just got to limit those big innings. We’ve got to limit those errors. You can’t turn one error into two errors, one walk into two walks, just play our game.”

New Ulm tied the game up in the top of the third when Castleman was hit by a pitch, advanced to third on an error, and scored on a sacrifice bunt by Rathmann.

Marshall got on the board early when Andrew Stelter reached on an error to lead off the bottom of the first, advanced to third on a Thor sacrifice bunt and a passed ball, and scored on a Kruse sacrifice fly.

Achman gave up three earned and three unearned runs on four hits over his three-inning start for New Ulm. He also struck out a pair of batters while recording the loss. Hopp also gave up three earned runs on two hits and three walks over one inning of relief, while Candon Briggs and Dirk Haynes each pitched a shutout, hitless, walkless inning.

“Even though we really had a little bit of a rough fourth inning and got down by eight runs at that point, we didn’t roll over and we kept at it,” Anderson said. “We kept playing our game and kept being engaged. In the end, we got some swings and kept it a game. I was super proud of the way that they reacted in that last inning.”

Hubbard singled in the sixth, advanced to second on a Kyle Albrecht walk and crossed the plate when Tanner Backer reached on an error to cut the deficit to 9-2. 

The Tigers will look to tighten up their defense ahead of their next section tournament game, Pollock said after the Tigers finished with seven errors on Wednesday to New Ulm’s four.

“Fielding is like hitting, pitching or any part of the game: it’s all about rhythm,” Pollock said. “We just lost our rhythm fielding the ball for whatever reason. We need to get back into that, and I’m confident we’ll be better there shorting up some of those issues.”