Greg Bates, Leader Correspondent
With a comfortable lead in the third inning Friday, Gresham baseball coach Scott Cerveny wanted more than a shortened-game victory. He wanted to get his young guys meaningful playing time.
Cerveny was able to do that, plus pull off a 12-2 victory in six innings over Marion at Riverside Park in Gresham.
“It’s trying to focus on the younger kids in games like this,” Cerveny said. “We knew Marion is a little down yet, and it’s a good way to get these younger kids at-bats.”
Gresham drew seven walks, and five of those runners came across to score. The Wildcats also took advantage of three Marion errors in the first three innings to plate seven runs.
Gresham (6-2, 6-2 Central Wisconsin Conference 10) put up four runs in the opening frame to force Marion (2-7, 2-7 CWC-10) to play catchup the entire game.
“We’ve been doing it all season,” Marion coach Aaron Schoen said. “It’s nothing new to us, we’ve been battling back. I think we end up surprising some teams here and there, where they probably overlook us a little bit. We always battle all the way through it.”
The Wildcats ran wild on the base paths, tallying 14 stolen bases. Neal Cerveny led the way with six, reaching base in all four plate appearances in going 3 for 3. Drew Haffner added three steals and got on base three times.
Gresham opened the bottom of the first with a Cerveny single . Haffner reached on an error. Derek Bowman followed with a two-run single. Justice Paiser got on base on a fielder’s choice and scored on a Ray Creapeau double off the top of the left-center fence to make it 3-0. Creapeau scored on Todd Otradovec’s groundout.
The Wildcats added a run in the second and two in the third as Creapeau drove in Paiser and Creapeau scored on an error.
Marion got a leadoff double from Elandt in the fourth, and he scored on a passed ball to get the Mustangs on the scoreboard.
Three straight walks loaded the bases for Paiser in the bottom of the inning as he stroked a two-run single to score Cerveny and Haffner.
After Marion cut its deficit to 9-2, Gresham went to work in the bottom of the sixth inning. Bowman drove in a pair of runs again, and the eventual winning run moved over to third with a one-out groundout. Creapeau hit a hot shot to shortstop Chris Buss who fired home, but the throw was too late as Bowman scored to give Gresham a victory by the 10-run rule.
Gresham finished with eight hits but also eight strikeouts. The majority of those came from sophomores and freshmen.
“They’re still not swinging it like I’d like them to,” Cerveny said. “I’d like them to make contact. They’re standing and looking too much. You’ve got to go up there cutting.”
Cerveny went with four pitchers for the game to conserve arms for next week’s games. Neal Cerveny — who pitched a complete game gem just four days earlier — went the two innings and was perfect before giving way to Creapeau, who went two frames. Paiser threw the fifth and Haffner tossed a final perfect inning.
Marion’s Riley Loughan started and went the first two-plus innings, allowing seven runs on five hits. Conner Thoma threw the final four innings and surrendered three hits.
Cayden Schoen and Elandt each had two hits apiece to lead Marion.
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 R H E
Marion 0 0 0 1 1 0 – 2 6 3
Gresham 4 1 2 2 0 3 – 12 8 0