Marmion’s offense comes alive vs. Hampshire

Marmion senior Jordan Meyer went 3-for-3 at the plate, just one of the stars in the Cadets’ dominating 13-1 victory over Hampshire on Saturday to win the Class 3A Hampshire regional championship.

It turns out his perfect hitting wasn’t even Meyer’s favorite part of the day.

That came moments after the game when Meyer sneaked up on his coach Dave Rakow and soaked him with a bucket full of water.

“The dumping was more fun,” Meyer smiled. “You never get to pour water on the coaches. That’s one time he’ll let it slide.”

Rakow certainly was in a good mood after watching his team’s offense come alive with 13 unanswered runs after Hampshire (15-15) had taken a 1-0 lead in the top of the first.

That offensive explosion was quite a contrast to the Cadets’ semifinal win, a 1-0 struggle over Crystal Lake Central in 8 innings Wednesday.

“You have to give the guys credit, they came out and hit the ball today,” Rakow said. “They didn’t hit it well Wednesday. We made a conscious effort to focus on in practice. It’s something where we set the guys down and told the guys we need to start hitting the ball.”

Marmion (20-8) advances to the Class 3A Rochelle sectional and a matchup at 4 p.m. Thursday against Belvidere North. The Cadets have won two straight regional titles and three in the last four years.

Hampshire (15-15), fresh off an upset win over Burlington Central Friday, jumped on Marmion starter Tim Tarter in the first. Danny Grzywa walked and scored on Tyler Crater’s double to deep left-center, just the fifth earned run Tarter has allowed this year.

That hit turned out to be the only one Tarter gave up. The hard-throwing left-hander fanned six and walked one in improving to 9-0.

“I didn’t know much coming into the game about Hampshire,” Tarter said. “I was getting more focused on Burlington. And then last night my mom looked on the Internet and said Hampshire won. I didn’t know what to expect so I went with my same approach.”

Tarter pounded the inside corner with his fastball, a pitch tougher to hit than usual with the overcast conditions. He needed only 58 pitches in the 4-and-a-half inning game.

“When he’s throwing strikes it’s very difficult for guys to hit him especially when it is cloudy and a little bit darker like today,” Rakow said. “It’s tough to hit a good pitcher in these conditions.”

Tarter tied the game 1-1 with an RBI single off Hampshire starter Luke Wians in the bottom of the first to score Meyer who had doubled.

The Cadets broke the game open sending 13 batters to the plate in a 9-run third inning. They only had 6 hits in the inning but capitalized on a pair of errors, 2 hit batters and 3 wild pitches and passes balls while being aggressive on the basepaths with 3 steals.

“That’s the kind of baseball we like to play,” Rakow said. “Get runners on base, steal bases, lay down bunts, put pressure on them.”

Meyer gave the Cadets the lead for good at 2-1 with a run-scoring single. Tarter delivered his second straight RBI single, and later in the inning Andy Young and Mitch Sterne both went to the opposite field for 2-run singles as Marmion chased Wians.

“Once we went through the order once we came back in and told each other what he was pitching,” Meyer said. “He was throwing outside and we all waited on it and took it the other way. We figured it out the second time around.”

Hampshire coach Steve Ream said Wians has been struggling with a sore arm most of the year, and that Crater — who moved from catcher to relieve Wians in the third — is dealing with a sprained ankle.

“Everybody has those kinds of games and we had one today,” Ream said. “We have played some really, really good defense this year and our pitchers have thrown real well this year. This wasn’t one of those days.”

With only 1 hit, Hampshire continued a pattern this year of sluggish offense, a fact that made a .500 finish all the more impressive to Ream.

“We only hit .258 and you check any other teams that only hit .258 and I guarantee they aren’t 15-15,” Ream said. “We put together some good games and scratched out some runs and wins just by hard work, defense and pitching and today it wasn’t to be the case. I told those guys to be proud of what they accomplished because we didn’t provide the offensive firepower to finish .500.”