Marshals win 4th District title 6-3 over Murray

4th District Champion Marshall County Marshals
4th District Champion Marshall County Marshals

MURRAY – After three days of post-ponements due to rain, the 4th District baseball title game was finally played on Friday at noon at Murray State’s Johnny Reagan Field.

Justice Beal heading to home plate to score a run in the 1st inning for the Marshals.
Justice Beal heading to home plate to score a run in the 1st inning for the Marshals.

Marshall’s J.C. Goins who hadn’t thrown in 10 days, settled in after the 1st inning and pitched 5 innings, allowing 2 hits, no runs, struck out 3 with no walks to lead the Marshals to a 6-3 win and the 4th District title.

Goins had some help from the Marshal hitters, in particular, Justice Beal who was 3 for 4 at the plate with 4 RBI’s. Beal hit an RBI single in the 1st, RBI single in the 4th and 2-run single in the 6th.

“In every situation where we had two outs and runners on, it seems like he was up and he did a good job hitting the ball in the middle and it fell every time for him”, Head Coach Mike Johnson said. “He’s a senior and you hope that those guys are up in those clutch situations.”

The Marshals jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the 1st inning on RBI singles by Beal and Cameron Ives and scored another run on an RBI single by Beal in the 4th that brought in Austin Stockdale who walked to get on base after finishing Drake Anderson’s at bat. Anderson was hit under the eye by the ball and had to leave the game.

Beal came through again in the 6th with a 2-out 2-run single that put the Marshals up 6-0, set up by a single by Clay Austin, single by Jackson Beal and nice sacrifice bunt by Travis Tack.

Murray rallied in the 7th, loading the bases with 1 out, scoring on a fielder’s choice, a bases loaded walk and wild pitch to cut the Marshals lead in half.

Brandon Blossom came to the mound in relief of Griffin Ives who left the game with a thumb injury and pulled the Marshals out of the inning when Cameron Ives tagged out Ethan Back at 3rd base to end the game.

“We went off our approach and kind of felt good about ourselves about the 5th and when you’re up it’s easy to do, and made it interesting in the end”, Johnson said.

The Marshals will know who they play in next week’s 1st Region Tournament at McCracken County after Saturday morning’s draw.

 1   2   3   4   5   6   7     R   H  E
Murray   0  0  0  0  0  0  3  3  4  4
Marshall   3  0  0  1  0  2  –  6  8  2

HITTING
Marshall: Forsythe 1/3, Ju. Beal 3/4 (4 RBIs), C. Ives 1/4 (RBI), Austin 2/3, Ja. Beal 1/3
Murray: Kelly 1/3, Shelton 1/3, Foster 1/3, Nelson (RBI), Crady 1/1, Back (RBI)
PITCHING
Marshall: Goins 5.0 (2 hits, 0 runs), G. Ives 1.2 (2 hits, 3 runs), Blossom 0.1 (0 hits, 0 runs)
Murray: Shelton 2.0 (3 hits, 3 runs), Gray 4.0 (5 hits, 3 runs)