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Marmion squeaks past Rochelle
Updated: June 2, 2011 9:32PM
Now it’s Marmion’s turn to try to get over a mental hurdle. The Cadets will play for their third sectional championship in four years on Saturday following a 2-1 victory over Rochelle Thursday in a Rochelle Class 3A Sectional semifinal.
Saturday’s title game opponent, Kaneland, had never won a regional before this season. Marmion (21-8) has that part down, but lost 6-5 to DeKalb last season in the sectional title game and fell 6-4 to Rock Falls in 2008.
“I don’t think we’re nervous,” Marmion coach Dave Rakow said. “We didn’t hit the ball as well as we would have liked to, but I don’t think it was nerves. I think we need to get more mentally focused.”
Cadets ace and University of Illinois-Chicago-bound lefty Tim Tarter (10-0) fought through a blister on his pitching hand to toss a complete game four-hitter and allowed one unearned run.
“He was hitting spots and we just weren’t swinging the bat,” said Hubs cleanup hitter Sean Hudson, who just missed a two-run homer in the top of the sixth. “He’d come inside, then he’d go outside and then he’d slow stuff down. He just knew what he was doing out there.”
The Hubs (10-20) had the tying run at third and the winning run on first with two out in the top of the seventh when Tarter struck out Eric Duthie to end the game.
On deck was Northern Illinois University-bound slugger Micah McCulloch.
“I was like this will pretty much make or break the game right here so I went after him,” Tarter said of his approach to Duthie. “I did not want to face (McCulloch) — he’s a big guy and it’s a short field so he can hit it out pretty easily.”
The Hubs stayed in the game thanks to the efforts of Hudson, who entered the game with a 3-7 record and an earned run average over five. Yet the senior right-hander allowed six hits in six innings while stranding eight.
“We hit a lot of fly balls today and our approach is to not hit fly balls,” Cadets catcher Kyle Kozak said. “We came out with a win, we battled, we fought (but) we didn’t hit real well. We have to hit better against Kaneland. We’re not going to win playing like that.”
Marmion took a 1-0 lead in the second inning on an RBI groundout by Andy Young.
Kozak then came through with the eventual game-winner in the third, scoring Mitch Sterne on a single.
Tarter made those two runs hold up.
“In a perfect world we would have scored 10 runs by the third inning and could have pulled Timmy to save him for Monday, but we had to take it one game at a time and we knew these guys were hot,” Rakow said. “It ended up being a one-run game with our ace going seven innings. You have to give Timmy credit for going out there and battling. That’s what he’s done all season.”
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