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Marion's big first inning keys win over Van Buren in Arkansas 5A baseball championship game

The Patriots scored seven runs in the first inning.

By Jeff Halpern | Photos by Tommy Land 

BENTON — The first inning was an inning to remember for Marion and one to forget for Van Buren in Saturday’s Class 5A baseball championship game at the Everrett Baseball Field. 

The Marion Patriots scored 7 runs — 6 unearned — on 4 hits with 2 errors and 2 walks and 1 other fielding misplay while sending 11 men to the plate. That inning helped lift the Patriots (32-5) to an 11-6 victory over defending champion Van Buren (26-6).

“That’s tough, to go out and play that way is hard,” said Van Buren head coach Luke Weatherford. “Unfortunately, that was very uncharacteristic of us. They hit a a couple balls hard us. I don’t remember the last time we gave up 11 runs.”

The inning started when Marion’s Gage Watson reached on a fielding error by Van Buren second baseman Dylan Dudley. Peyton Voyles followed with a walk and then Dylan Kight struck out. The next batter, Chase Armstrong, hit a ball to the left-field wall that should have been a double, but Watson and Voyles didn’t get a good jump and Armstrong settled for a single to load the bases.

Devin Gattis then balked in Watson to make it 1-0. Connor Taylor hit a ball to Van Buren first baseman Jackson Rotert, whose throw home was late in getting Voyles making it 2-0. Matthew Kearney followed with a sacrifice bunt to score Landon Miller, who was running for Armstrong to make it 3-0. Luke Bollins had an RBI infield single to score Taylor when shortstop Brecklin Waters’ throw was off the mark, making it 4-0. After Connor Brinkley walked, Kaleb Catt singled to right to score Bollins and Brinkley to make it 6-0 and Watson singled to right to score Catt to make it 7-0.

“I sure didn’t expect this game to end up 11-6,” said Marion head coach Pete Prater. “Our guys did a great jumping on their guys. I know we barreled a lot of balls today.”

Van Buren scored three unearned runs of their own in the bottom half of the first. Malachi Henry led off with a walk, Presley Nichols reached on a fielding error to the second baseman Voyles. After Eli Gilreath and Connor Brady popped up, Rotert walked to load the bases and Hayden Hurst walked to score Henry and Waters singled to score Nichols and Rotert to close it to 7-3.

After Gattis struggled through the first inning in which he threw 34 pitches, Van Buren switched to Gilreath, who didn’t fare much better in the second as he faced 8 batters, giving up 4 runs on 4 hits with 2 walks with a bases loaded walk to Bollins scoring Kight, a single by Brinkley to score Miller, a walk to Catt which scored Taylor and a sacrifice fly by Watson which scored Bollins to make it 11-3.

“We started the wrong guy,” said Weatherford, of his decision to start Gattis. “We had a lot of guys ready.”

Brady settled things down for the Pointers when he pitched the final 5 innings, allowing no runs on 2 hits.

Van Buren closed to 11-5 in the second when Gilreath hit a two-run home run over the 375-foot sign in center field. After that, Prater switched to Benjamin Gerrard, who allowed 1 run over the final 5 2/3 while throwing 100 pitches to earn state finals MVP honors.

“We all knew they can swing it and they are a great squad,”said Gerrard. “That’s all I came in here to do. I got 110 pitches, I might as well use them.”

Prater said his plan was to use Armstrong as long as he could until he saw problems, but didn’t hesitate to go to Gerrard.

“I saw how they answered in the first, but in the third and fourth innings we had to get some zeroes and we did a good job of that,” said Prater.

Van Buren had two chances to claw into Marion’s lead in the fifth and sixth innings, but came away empty handed. The Pointers loaded the bases in the fifth thanks to Waters reaching on an error, Joshua Nowotny walking and Henry singling to center, but Nichols struck out to end the inning.

In the sixth, Brady doubled and Rotert walked but Hayden Hurst popped out and Waters lined to short.

“That was big,” said Weatherford. If we had gotten a base hit, we could have gotten Gerrard out of the game,”

Prater was proud of seeing his team win the first state championship in school history “This is big for our guys and our team,” said Prater. “Everyone on this team has stuck through thin times and went through a lot of tests and responded. The big thing is our pitching was awesome the second half of the season.”

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