Assumption batters Marion in 3A final

MAQUOKETA - The beginning of the end came on a unique first-inning double play. The end of the end was courtesy of plain-old good hitting from the opponent.

Make that great hitting from Davenport Assumption.

'They're just flat out a good ballclub,” said Marion's Quinn Cannoy, after he and his team absorbed a 10-0, five-inning beating in a Class 3A substate final Wednesday night. 'By far, that's the best hitting team we've faced. One through nine in the order, they all can hit.”

They all did hit in this one. Almost all of them.

Assumption (23-15) totaled 13 hits, with few of them of the cheap variety. Ping, ping, ping, it was line drive after line drive.

'If there's a better team in 3A, I'd like to see them,” said Marion Coach Steve Fish. 'Holy smokes, they're men up there swinging. We look like we're on the wrong field playing these guys from a size standpoint. ... Sometime you run into a better team. They knocked us out in the first round last year. They really knocked us out this year.”

Marion (24-16) had its chance to at least make Assumption wonder a little bit by loading the bases with one out in the top of the first. But John Carstensen hit a one-hopper to the left of Knights third baseman Ryan Belk, who deftly fielded it, tagged base runner Christian Stekl, who was coming at him, and threw to second base in time for the force out.

Score that a peculiar 5-4 double play.

'We needed to put pressure on them that first inning,” Fish said. 'We didn't put any pressure on them, they get two right away in the bottom of the first, and we're on our heels.”

Cannoy came in with a 7-2 record and 1.34 earned run average, but was no match for a team that had a .342 batting average, most of it compiled against 4A competition. Zach Adrian had a pair of RBI doubles for the Knights, and leadoff hitter Jake Gervase had three hits, including a triple that plated two runs in the fifth.

He scored on an ensuing Michael Alvarado line-drive single to end the game via mercy rule.

'We knew (Cannoy) was a good pitcher, but we're also a good hitting team,” Adrian said.

'Everyone was clicking tonight,” Gervase said. 'At the plate, we were just attacking the baseball, putting an emphasis on line drives. We came out and put up a 10-spot.”

Marion did get six hits against Assumption starter Jay Campbell, but he always made the big pitch when needed. Ironically, the Indians had shutout wins in their first two postseason games.

'If you'd have told me at the beginning of the year that we'd win 24 games and make a run like we did at the end of the year, I'd have been happy,” Fish said. 'In the last nine years, we've been in seven substate final games. I told them that not a lot of teams do that. I told them to learn from this environment because we don't want to be on this end of it. We want to go to the state tournament. But we were down to the final 16, and that's something.”

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