By Thomas Duzan
The baseball season went into its second week on Tuesday as the Marshall Lions ventured over to Evergreen Hollow Park in Effingham for a game against the Effingham Hearts. The Lions got off to a promising start, but things went down from there, and the game ended in the fifth inning with the Hearts winning by run rule 14-1.
There was a bit of a lineup shuffle for the Lions, as Branson Maskell led the game off. He started by getting on base with a single. From there, Reed Ramey reached on an error. That put runners at first and second with no outs for the heart of the lineup in Garrett Pugh.
He connected with a frozen rope out to left field for a single, though it wasn’t enough to score Maskell at the time. It did load the bases for Liam Keim, but he would strike out for the first out. Marshall was able to get a run in when Maskell scored on an RBI groundout for Max Welsh. Shane Tarble stepped up next but lined out to the shortstop to negate any further threat.
It would be Keim to start on the mound in this game for Marshall. He got off to a slow start, giving up a leadoff double to Westin Hayes. A communication error resulted in a hit for Andrew Wagoner that dropped into short center field. The next hitter, Jude Traub, brought in the first run on an RBI groundout.
The field at Effingham has a big outfield with slightly longer than normal dimensions, and that played into an RBI triple that came from the next hitter, Carter Braddy. Later in the inning Keim was able to keep the damage to two runs when he got Wyatt Hayes to fly out to left, giving the Hearts a 2-1 lead going to the second.
Eli Thompson led off the top of the second grounding out to first for the first out, then Gavan Propst legged out a beautiful bunt on the infield for a bunt single. Marshall looked to get the run in but Tucker Osborn grounded out to second and Maskell flew out to center for the third out.
The bottom of the second started off with a strikeout of Max Flock. Keegan Koester then came up next and singled. The big outfield showed itself once again soon after that as Westin Hayes came up and brought him in on an RBI triple. The damage was kept at a limit when a strikeout of Wagoner sent the game to the third with Effingham now up 3-1.
The Lions continued hitting the ball in the third, but unfortunately, they kept finding the gloves of Heart players. Ramey grounded out to third and Pugh popped out. Keim then reached base on an error, then Cage Stuckey came on as a courtesy runner for Keim. He was able to take second base but would be stranded there when Welsh struck out for the third out.
The bottom of the third started in scary fashion with Traub hitting a line shot back to Keim, that hit Keim right in the knee. Fortunately, the ball ricocheted in a manner that Pugh was able to come on and catch it for out number one. Despite being on the ground for a bit, Keim was able to stay in the game for a little longer but wasn’t the same.
He gave up a walk to Braddy, but then got Brayden Tucker to fly out to center, on which Osborn made a good diving play. After that, however, He gave up two hits and another walk before Keim was replaced on the mound with Osborn. He surrendered a bases loaded walk to Koester, then struck out Westin Hayes to send the game to the fourth now at 5-1 Effingham.
The Lions were once again able to get a runner on base, but unable to get home to score. After Tarble struck out and Thompson grounded out, Propst got a sudden burst of power and nearly knocked out a solo homer but was content with a double. Osborn popped out to second to strand the runner at second.
It was in the bottom of the fourth where the game unraveled for Marshall. Effingham bats were connecting with the ball and runs came in and it culminated with a grand slam home run for Braddy. When the smoke cleared, the Hearts scored nine times to make it 14-1 going to the fifth.
Marshall went down without much noise in the top of the fifth with Maskell grounding out, Ramey struck out and Pugh popped out to bring an early end to the game, giving Effingham the 14-1 win.