The Marshall baseball team has had a knack for big game hunting this spring. So far, the Cardinals have knocked off Deerfield and Waterloo, a pair of teams that were ranked in the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association (WBCA) top-20 entering the matchup.
Capitol — South conference leader New Glarus had just dropped out of the rankings. The previously undefeated Glarner Knights had just taken a pair of losses to Cambridge and dropped from the Division 4 rankings. That didn’t make them any less of a threat as they hosted Marshall on Monday, May 6.
These two conference rivals had opened the season against each other. New Glarus came to Marshall and romped to a 14-1 victory. Inclement weather pushed the rematch from later in the opening week all the way to Monday. The Cardinals showed their growth as a program in the meantime as they took an 11-6 victory.
With this being Marshall’s only conference game of the week, the Cardinals took advantage of the situation and threw their ace, junior Carson Connelly. He went all seven innings, allowing 12 hits with five strikeouts. The Glarner Knights were only able to produce two runs against him in the opening five innings before they got hot with their final four scores in the bottom of the sixth.
Marshall’s offense displayed great consistency with runs in every inning. This kicked off with three in the top of the first. The Cardinals connected on three consecutive RBI singles, courtesy of sophomore Brady Kleinheinz, freshman Logan Ney, and junior Maddux Anacker. The quick flurry of bats made it a 3-0 ballgame from the jump.
The Cardinals set the stage to score again in the top of the second inning as junior Teseo Ruelas reached first base on an error. Senior Matthew Motl quickly punched a ground ball single into left field. Ruelas, who had moved over to second base on a wild pitch, motored home on the hit to make it four runs for his Cardinals.
Marshall proceeded to tack on one run in both the top of the third and fourth innings. Sophomore Garret Shepler came up clutch first, punishing a single to right field to bring home Ney. Connelly gave himself some extra cushion in the fourth inning, grounding a single to center to bring in Ruelas and make it a 6-0 game.
New Glarus answered with its first two runs in the bottom of the fourth inning, but Marshall gave the Glarner Knights two more runs right back in the top of the fifth. Shepler and junior Remington Braun connected on back-to-back RBI singles to left field.
The Cardinals just never slowed down. The bats stayed hot in the top of the sixth inning as Motl and Connelly led off with a single and double, respectively. Junior Mitchell Pletcher made it three straight hits with a single to center field to score Motl. In the top of the seventh, it was only fitting Connelly capped off the scoring. He laced a double into center field to bring both Braun and Ruelas home.
After his big shot at the plate, Connelly returned to the mound and iced the game. He went three up, three down including back-to-back strikeouts to finish off the side. The final swing and a miss confirmed Marshall’s impressive 11-6 road victory over one of the conference’s best this season.
Marshall now sits with a 7-6 record, including a 4-3 mark in Capitol — South play. The Cardinals are on a three-game conference winning streak. Up next, the Cardinals will take a non-conference road trip to Poynette on Tuesday, May 7. They’ll follow that up by participating in a tournament at Edgerton on Saturday, May 11. Their next conference game isn’t until Tuesday, May 15 with a trip to league-leading Cambridge.
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Capitol — South conference baseball standings
(overall records in parenthesis)
-as of Monday, May 6
1. Cambridge, 7-1 (9-4)
2. Waterloo, 5-2 (13-3)
3. New Glarus, 5-3 (8-3)
4. Marshall, 4-3 (7-6)
5. Belleville, 1-7 (4-11)
6. Wisconsin Heights, 0-7 (2-12)
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