Baseball: Marshall musters winning effort for Grayslake N.

At 5 feet 9 and 155 pounds, Grayslake North's bespectacled junior pitcher Nate Marshall makes Kyle Hendricks look tough.

Tough is Lakes multisport athlete Ryan Selig, a 6-3, 210-pound junior who this week committed to play football for Western Michigan University, which plans to play him at outside linebacker.

Don't let Marshall's physical appearance fool you, however.

"He competes," Grayslake North coach Brett Hill said. "He gets on the mound, he takes the ball, and he gets after it. I love that about him. Not a lot of emotion, but you can see it in his face he's ready to compete when the game starts."

Take Friday. Marshall pitched 6 quality innings, as visiting Grayslake North captured a 7-1 decision in a rematch of Tuesday's Northern Lake County Conference opener, which Lakes won in Lake Villa.

Marshall, who won a pair of games on the Knights' Spring Break trip to Florida, has 3 wins in as many starts. He limited a good-hitting Lakes team to 3 hits, striking out three and walking two. Not a hard thrower, the right-hander relied on his curveball, throwing it consistency for strikes.

Knights lefty Eddie Erickson pitched a scoreless seventh, striking out two.

"Definitely my curve worked a lot," Marshall said after Grayslake North improved to 6-2 and 1-1 in the NLCC, while Lakes dropped to 6-2 and 1-1. "I was able to locate my fastball very well, too."

His location had the Eagles off-balance all game.

"I think I was behind in the count every single at-bat," said Selig, who flied out and grounded out twice. "I don't think he threw me one fastball. I think he had a game plan coming in, and he did a good job."

Marshall's defense had his back too. Declan Peterson, Sebastian Sancen and Chris Kelly executed a 6-4-3 double play, and birthday-boy Austin Delao threw out a runner trying to steal second base.

"They did an amazing job," Marshall said. "They really helped me. (The defense) helped me have confidence in myself. I was able to throw pitches where I wanted them, and if (Lakes) hit them, I knew my defense would back me up."

Grayslake North's coaches saw Marshall's potential last spring when he got called up and pitched well in the Knights' regular-season finale against Carmel.

Lakes' only hits came from Joe Glassey, Logan Mueller and Quinn McQuade, whose fifth-inning double to left-center nearly cleared the fence. He scored on Matt Grubb's sacrifice fly.

"We shut ourselves down," Lakes coach Bob Holst said. "Our first time through the order we had five flyballs. That's because we were ahead of (Marshall). He's not overpowering, so when we're ahead, we delay. Our hands drop below, and our bats get an upward look. You're not going to hit the ball over the outfielder's head in these kind of (cold) conditions with a kid throwing that soft."

Grayslake North gave Marshall all the run support he needed in the second inning, scoring 5 runs and knocking starting pitcher McQuade out of the game. Kelly had a 2-run single, while Nick Lovitsch, Delao and Danny Yates also drove in runs. Delao had a hit-and-run single in the fourth, sending Kelly to third base. Yates' second sacrifice fly of the game made it 6-0.

Regen Marsell (2-for-3, RBI single) was the Knights' only player with more than one hit.

"I told the kids I adopted the (phrase), 'No little things. All the little things are big. Everything that we do is important,' " Hill said. "I was happy with the way we came out ready to play. Two-strike at-bats, putting the ball in play, making (Lakes) make plays, executing, hit-and-runs."