Baseball: Marmion routs Burlington Central for sectional crown

Marmion baseball coach Frank Chapman couldn't have asked for a much better start from his team Saturday.

Four batters into their Class 3A sectional championship clash with Burlington Central, the Cadets (20-16) had grabbed a 4-0 lead after junior pitcher Brandon McPherson kept the Rockets off the board in the top half of the first.

Marmion added a fifth run in the bottom half of the frame, put another run on the board in the second and erased all doubts with a 7-run fourth during its 13-0, 5-inning triumph over Burlington Central in Sycamore.

While capturing their first sectional title, the Cadets advance to Monday's 7 p.m. supersectional against Morton at Augustana College in Rock Island.

"When you jump on a team like this, they kind of get down and you just have to keep scratching some runs across," said senior outfielder Bobby Pierce, whose 3-run home run highlighted the Cadets' 5-run first.

Collin Gibson walked to begin things for the Cadets before back-to-back hit batsmen loaded the bases for Pierce.

A wild pitch enabled Gibson to come across with the game's first run before Pierce deposited a 2-2 fastball well over the left-field fence.

"I was looking for a fastball and he gave it to me inside," Pierce said of his 6th home run of the season. "I definitely felt it."

Chapman praised Pierce for his work ethic after some early season struggles.

"I'm very proud of Bobby," said Chapman. "He started out slow the first couple weeks. He worked on things and making adjustments and we used that time to evaluate some other guys. Then the opportunity came again and he has been hot ever since."

Bryce Burton's RBI single in the second extended the lead to 6-0 and the Cadets sent 11 batters to the plate in the fourth, which featured an RBI double from Chase Stanke, a 2-run single by Jack Molenhouse and Trevor Taus' run-scoring single - all part of the Cadets' 12-hit attack.

"We did a lot of things that are uncharacteristic of us," said Rockets coach Kyle Nelson of his team's lack of command on the mound (5 walks, 3 hit batsmen). "Our pitching staff has thrown strikes all year.

"Give them (the Cadets) credit. They did a fantastic job. They took good at-bats and they didn't help us out at all when we were struggling."

McPherson improved his record to 7-2 while limiting the Rockets to 1 hit - a first-inning double by Brandon Van Buren.

"He threw extremely well today," Chapman said of McPherson, who walked 3 - all in the fifth inning - while recording 8 strikeouts.

"My team did a real good job of getting out to a lead," said McPherson, who hasn't allowed a run in 11 innings this postseason. "I just went out there with confidence."

Eight different players had RBI for the Cadets - 2 each from Elias Flowers and Molenhouse.

"The fourth time is a charm," said Chapman, who once worked as an assistant for Nelson at Burlington Central. "It's not just these guys I'm proud of - it's our assistant coaches as well. I have six guys on staff who played in those other three (sectional championship games) and lost."

Josh Noeska (6-1), 1 of 9 seniors for the Rockets, suffered the loss.

"It's a fantastic group of seniors," said Nelson. "Obviously, the result wasn't what we wanted today but the process was exactly what we were looking for."