EDWARDSVILLE – Mother Nature forced Thursday’s Gateway Metro Conference baseball game between Father McGivney Catholic and Marquette Catholic to a new location, but the result remained the same for the Griffins.
Get The Latest News!
Don't miss our top stories and need-to-know news everyday in your inbox.
After Tuesday’s 9-2 win over the Explorers at Lloyd Hopkins Field, the Griffins were supposed to play host on Thursday. But rainfall forced a change of scenery to the newly completed, all-turf baseball fields at Edwardsville’s Plummer Family Park.
The Griffins didn’t care and didn’t miss a beat, tacking on five runs in the bottom of the first, controlling the entire game en route to an 11-0 win.
Jack Pruitt started out on the mound for Marquette, and he saw trouble early on. Kannon Kamp drew a leadoff walk, and it was all downhill from there for the Explorers.
Omar Avalos came up and smacked an RBI triple. Drew Kleinheider did the same right after to score Avalos. Justin Terhaar followed that up with an RBI single, and then Isaac Wendler sent a two-run home run over the left field fence to make it 5-0.
“I think that’s being locked in and hitting a lot of line drives,” McGivney head coach Chris Erwin said. “I thought the guys did a great job staying on pitches, not trying to pull off of them, and you try and put as much damage as you could in the first inning.”
Pruitt walked Ben Sink, but got the next three batters, getting out of the inning with back-to-back strikeouts.
Meanwhile, Kamp was cruising on the mound. He threw five innings, throwing 57 pitches on the day. He faced 20 batters and struck out eight of them while allowing five hits. 50 of his 57 pitches were thrown strikes.
Two errors saw McGivney plate some more runs in the bottom of the fourth. Kamp got to second on a dropped infield fly. Kleinheider then brought him home with an RBI double. Terhaar hit an RBI single, but a passed ball error in center field allowed him to get around to third and score Kleinheider to make it 7-0.
That was the end of Pruitt’s day. Keller Jacobs came in to relieve.
“Jack [Pruitt] just wasn’t on today,” Marquette head coach Tim Fahnestock said. “It happens, that’s high school baseball. We just didn’t have a good start. He missed location on pitches, and they took advantage of him. Good lineup, and they put the ball in play.”
Wendler came back up and hit a sacrifice RBI to score Terhaar from third and make it 8-0 after four innings.
Kamp went strikeout, strikeout, groundout in the top of the fifth, and then the Griffins ended it in the bottom.
Mason Holmes hit a lead-off single and then stole second. On the mound, Jacobs was struggling to find the strike zone. He walked Ty Etcheson and Kamp to load the bases. He then walked Avalos to score Holmes. Kleinheider then ended the game with a two-run single that scored Etcheson and Kamp to get the final of 11-0.
“We’re starting to get four, five, six games under our belt, so the guys are starting to get more comfortable with pitches, and seeing them,” Erwin said. “It helps out a lot when you get 20 to 30 at-bats in. Guys are staying locked in.”
The win brings McGivney to 5-2 on the young season and 2-0 in the GMC.
The Griffins opened the season with a 12-0 win at Vandalia before playing four games in three days down in a tournament in Memphis, Tennessee. They went 2-2, including a first-round loss to nationally-ranked Magnolia Heights of Senatobia, Mississippi which has won six straight state titles.
The Marquette series kicked off a four-game, five-day stretch for the Griffins, who take on a couple of IHSA Class 1A schools in Westminster Christian and St. Teresa on Friday and Saturday, finally getting to play at home, weather permitting.
But with the two wins over Marquette, the important work is done.
“It’s kind of a deep breath,” Erwin said. “Coming out of Memphis, playing five games in that first week, and then you have to turn around and play your first conference series, against a really good opponent, you’ve got to take care of business.”
“We were a little worried about that with our arms being taxed down in Memphis, but we took care of business in the first two, and now we’ve got two more to go,” Erwin said.
Wendler went 1-2 on the day with a home run and three RBI. Kleinheider went 3-3 with a double, triple, three RBI, and two runs. Fahnestock had two hits for the Explorers.
The Griffins outhit Marquette 10-5 on the day.
The Explorers, who had a good 4-1 start to the season, felt like they regressed a little this week. Coach Fahnestock wasn’t exactly thrilled with how his team went about Monday’s game against Piasa Southwestern, and especially the series against McGivney.
“I thought we were in a good spot last week,” Fahnestock said. “We had good, solid outings against Gillespie, Alton, and Gibault, but this week we kind of reverted. I think we got a little hyped on ourselves. This is a good reset, puts us back in perspective. McGivney’s a good team. They’re not 10 runs better than us, but we just didn’t show up today.”
The Explorers will hit the road on Saturday for a double-header at Calhoun. The games are set for noon and 2 p.m.
More like this:
