ALTON – After a successful opening week to the 2025 baseball season, the Marquette Explorers began another busy week as they hosted Piasa Southwestern Monday afternoon at Lloyd Hopkins Field.
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The Explorers scored 10 unanswered runs as they beat the Piasa Birds 14-4 after five innings. Marquette outhit Piasa 14-4.
Monday’s game was tied 4-4 heading into the bottom of the fourth when the Explorers plated 10 runs.
“It was a weird game,” Marquette head coach Tim Fahnestock said. “I kind of blame it a little bit of a busy week last week. The kids, I gave them Sunday off, which was the first day I’ve game them off since we started the season. We came out and were just a little bit amped for this week to start. I’m glad we focused and got the W.”
Marquette had a four-game week to kick open the season and went 3-1, improving to 4-1 after Monday, heading into some oddly early Gateway Metro Conference games against rivals Father McGivney.
“I ran into Chris Erwin (McGivney’s head coach) last week and we were talking about how we can’t believe we open conference the second week of the season,” Fahnestock explained.
“It’s been a good first week, saw some good things,” he said. “Today was a little bit of a step back, but yeah, we needed momentum, and we want to come get a W on our home field tomorrow to open conference,” Fahnestock said.
The Explorers have a 3-7 record against the Griffins all-time and have lost five straight heading into Tuesday’s home game at Lloyd Hopkins and Thursday’s outing in Glen Carbon.
It was the Piasa Birds who scratched the first run on Monday in the top of the first. Ike Austin got things going with a leadoff single and later moved to second after a wild pitch. Ian Brantley’s RBI single scored Austin to make it 1-0.
But the Explorers were quick to respond.
Karson Morrisey hit a leadoff triple and then Will Fahnestock was walked. With runners at the corners, Joe Stephan doubled, scoring Morrisey and putting Fahnestock on third. Elijah Rodgers hit a sacrifice RBI to score Fahnestock and then Keller Jacobs did the same to score Stephan to make it 3-1.
Both starting pitchers, Cohen Green for Marquette and Brantley for Piasa went three-up, three-down in the second.
With the bases loaded and only one out, Jack Pruitt hit a sacrifice RBI that scored Stephan to increase the lead to 4-1 in the bottom of the third. One of those base runners was Fahnestock who was hit by a pitch on his right elbow, and after taking his base, came out of the game briefly before eventually returning to his stomping grounds behind home plate.
Piasa wasted no time to mount a comeback.
Ryan Lowis singled and got to second on an error before Owen Gray was walked. Reed Campbell then singled, sending Gray to third and scoring Lowis to make it 4-2. Austin Bates singled to load the bases and then Blake Rimbey hit a two-RBI single down the third-base line to tie the game at 4-4.
That was all she wrote for Piasa.
The Explorers batted through the lineup and scored 10 runs in the bottom of the fourth. Tyler Roth got it started with an RBI double that scored designated hitter Carson Bauer all the way from first.
Fahnestock showed no signs of elbow pain and hit an RBI single that scored Roth. Stephan then hit a two-run double that scored Morrisey and Fahnestock to make it 8-4.
Pruitt reached on an error that allowed Stephan to score and then Roth came back up and hit his second double of the inning, this one good for two runs to make it 11-4.
Morrisey then got his two RBI thanks to a single that scored Roth and Pruitt and then Fahnestock hit another RBI single to score Morrisey for the final of 14-4.
Piasa came back up to bat in the top of the fifth, but the reliever Matt Cain shut them down. Pitching wise, Green threw 63 pitches and faced 18 batters, striking out two of them, and gave up one earned run on three hits.
After Fahnestock’s two-RBI double that made it 6-4, Brantley was swapped out for Austin. He ended up striking out two. Brantley had two Ks as well.
“Today, [Marquette] put the ball in play. That’s the difference,” Piasa head coach Brian Hanslow said. “They put the ball in play, found gaps, and we didn’t.”
The Piasa Birds drop to 2-2 on the season and continue a busy week tomorrow, March 25, at Jerseyville. They then host Alton on Thursday and Roxana on Friday; all games starting at 4:30 p.m.
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