Martensdale-St. Mary's escapes English Valleys with walk-off win

DES MOINES - They'll be talking about this one for decades in North English, South English and Kinross. The rest of the state, too.

Remember the year English Valleys shocked the world and ended prep baseball's longest win streak ever? Almost.

“For sure, it'll be a game we'll always remember,” English Valleys shortstop Wes Warwick said after mighty Martensdale-St. Mary's escaped his gritty, gutty, full-of-heart, massively underdog club, 2-1, in a Class 1A state tournament quarterfinal Monday afternoon.

“It had been 30 years since we've won a district championship,” said EV Coach Matt Snakenberg. “They still talk about that game. So, absolutely, this is going to be one they'll be talking about for a long time. At least, I hope they will.”

It took David Walker's two-out RBI single in the bottom of the seventh for MSM (42-0) to win its 85th straight and overcome a 9-15 English Valleys team few felt belonged on the same Principal Park field.

“I honestly felt we could play with them,” Warwick said. “We'd just been playing better and better each game (in the postseason). They have a good defense, but as long as we played our defense and got a couple of base runners, I felt we could play with them.”

“I knew we could easily compete in this game,” said EV pitcher Kendall Gent. “We've faced players this year who were just as good as these guys. Just not a whole team one through nine. We haven't faced a team that good, but we knew we'd have a chance to win.”

Gent gave them that chance, throwing a gem against a club averaging just over 10 runs a game. The senior right-hander had only one clean inning but always made the pitches when he needed to, giving up five hits and two walks and striking out nine.

Josh Defenbaugh led off the MSM seventh with a walk, stealing second with one out. With two outs, leadoff hitter Walker pulled a line drive into right field to win it.

“The pressure kept building up throughout the whole game because it wasn't going our way,” Walker said. “For a while there, it was like we were just drifting through it. Like ‘Dang, what's happening?' You start to lose track of time, you look up and it's the sixth inning, and they've put another zero up there.”

Warwick led off the game with an opposite-field double down the right-field line, scoring on a one-out error. MSM tied it at 1-1 thanks to a high pop-up between the mound and first-base line that Gent misjudged and dropped for an error.

“I knew if we scored a run there in the first inning, that would give Kendall the confidence he needed to pitch as well as he did,” Snakenberg said.

“I was hitting my zones all afternoon,” Gent said. “My curveball was working great. But I've got to give all my credit to our defense. Our outfield played amazing.”

English Valleys finished with three hits against a quartet of MSM pitchers, striking out 17 times and putting the ball in play just six times. Carsten Parmenter singled leading off the Bears seventh, but they could not advance a runner further than first base.