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Bonus baseball: Marlington edges Niles
By Gary Housteau
STRUTHERS
With nothing but zeroes in the scoring columns for both teams through seven innings, Marlington (19-9) pushed across the game-winning run with the help of a costly two-out Niles error.
The Dukes’ 1-0 victory in eight innings sends them to today’s Division II district final against Poland at Bob Cene Park.
With two outs, a throwing error on a ground ball to third put Caden Swisher on second base after the ball went into the dugout. Zach Dezenzo singled just inside the third-base line to send Swisher home.
Marlington was held to four hits, with three of those given up by senior Jaret Johnson (6-0) through seven innings. Tyler Srbinovich relieved Johnson in the eighth inning.
Johnson admitted he wanted to throw more but an injury caused Niles head coach Mike Guarnieri to go to Srbinovich.
“I have a shoulder problem, my rotator cuff,” Johnson said. “It wasn’t hurting and then about the fifth inning it started hurting. I pushed through it through the seventh, and then after the seventh I couldn’t go anymore.
“[Guarnieri] asked me and I gave him the nod,” Johnson said. “It was very hard but I had full confidence in Tyler going in, he’s been good for us all year. That’s just the game of baseball.”
Marlington coach Mike Farrell was impressed with Johnson’s outing.
“What a great performance,” Farrell said. “He kept us off balance. His off-speed pitch, his curve ball was tight and really good to make his fastball look even faster than what it was.”
Pitching was definitely the name of the game.
“Brock [Begue] pitched a heck of a game,” Farrell said. “He threw a lot of strikes, he battled, he competed.
“They were very good hitters, they made adjustments and about the fourth inning they started hitting the change up so he went to his two-seam fastball.”
Farrell was prepared to yank Begue (10-0) if the game went any longer. Begue gave up six hits to six different batters.
“I felt like my fastball was really working towards the end,” Begue said. “They were hitting me pretty good in the first couple of innings but then I started calming down and hitting my spots and blowing my fastball by them at the end there.”
Johnson, who remained in the game at second base, hit a two-out triple in the eighth to keep the game alive but Begue got the final batter to go down swinging to end the contest.
The Red Dragons finish 23-6.
“My heart goes out to my kids,” Guarnieri said. “They’ve given me everything they possibly could. I’m infinitely proud of my guys, I’m proud of my coaching staff and I’m proud of the community of Niles for coming out and supporting these guys. It’s a tough one.
“You just watched two kids that just got after each other,” Guarnieri said. “It was just an unbelievable game to be a part of and I’m very proud of my guys.”