Indians Squeeze Past Redmen To Stay Unbeaten

MARQUETTE---The Gladstone Indians stayed undefeated for the 2012 season on Monday, but just barely. The Indians beat the Marquette Redmen, 3-2, as Cody Frazer drove in all three Gladstone runs and Colin O'Neal pitched four innings of one-hit relief.

"I think that if you ask the kids, yeah, we got the win, but they're not satisfied with it," Gladstone Manager Jim Groleau said. And O'Neal agreed with that assessment.

"We didn't play our game," O'Neal said, "but we took a 'W' away from them."

Blake Ballard was at third base.

The Indians-Redmen game was played on a small, poorly-groomed field. The high school Redmen team is forced to play some of its games on this field because of an on-going dispute between the high school and Legion programs.

While a Marquette Junior Reds vs Superior Central twinbill was played on the well-maintained large field nearby, this one was played on a field that was so hard that the two coaches agreed before the game not to bunt.

That was out of fear of someone being hurt if an infielder was playing in and a ground ball hit the "lip" of the grass, possibly hopping up and injuring a boy.

"Agreeing with Marquette not to lay down any bunts to move baserunners, well, that's a lot of our game," Groleau said. "Basically, it is what it is. Both teams had to play on it. But we had to agree to that just for safety reasons. It was the right thing to do."

"It was very hard to find a gap in the outfield," O'Neal said. "And everything hit on the ground popped right up on the infielders. So, it wasn't easy. I think we are spoiled in Gladstone with a nice field with people willing to work on it."

Jake Pearson played shortstop for the last four innings on this hard field.

And indeed, there were lots of bad hops in this game, for both teams. Indians second baseman Justin Jurek had to deal with three of them, for example.

Marquette's pitcher and shortstop had to eat an infield hit when a Christian Groleau pop fly on the infield landed between the mound and second base, and took an abrupt left turn.

This game was much different from the first meeting between the teams, which was won by the Indians, 11-1 in five innings in Gladstone.

Marquette was fresh off its first-ever high school tournament championship in Norway over the weekend, and they hung in there all night long.

Gladstone took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Justin Jurek walked, stole second, and scored on a hit by Frazer, who had just arrived at Marquette's field moments before game time due to a high school tennis match in Gladstone. He and doubles partner Bryce Wolf won their match, 6-0, 6-3, against Norway. Then, it was on the road!

"I missed warm-ups and I was a little worried about that," Frazer said. "But it worked out okay. It's always nice to get two wins in one day."

Frazer also brought in Gladstone's second run in the third inning on a sacrafice fly, a ball that was tracked down nicely by Marquette center fielder Mike House. Jurek, who was safe on a dropped pop-up to start that inning, scored the run that made it 2-0.

But Marquette (10-10) came back in the bottom of the third inning against Indians starter Jake Pearson. Josh Beaudry led off with a walk, then with one out, Branden Higby singled.

With two men on, Collin Schwemin got a bse hit to center field. With the field being so small, Beaudry was being held at third, but Indians center fielder Jared Stenson bobbled the ball, allowing the run to score.

And it looked like Marquette would tie the game when the next batter, Gabe Apple, hit a fly ball to left. But left fielder Matt Weyers threw a strike to home plate, and Frazer put on a perfect tag of Higby, keeping the Indians in a 2-1 lead.

Marquette did tie the game in the bottom of the fourth inning against O'Neal. He walked Nathan Lamora to lead off the inning, then Lamora stole second. He advanced to third on a ground out, then scored on a single by House that started as a ground ball to Jurek at second only to hop high into the air and over Jurek's shoulder.

The Redmen still had a threat on, but Ryan Frasier hit a hit shot back through the middle that O'Neal snared, starting a 1-6-3 double play to end the inning.

Cody Frazer drove in all three runs.

Gladstone (6-0) regained the lead in the fifth inning as Jurek led off with a double, then advanced on Groleau's pop fly that took a sudden left turn after it landed on this hard-as-concrete infield. Frazer then brought Jurek home for his third RBI of the game.

"I think we're still hurting because we lost Peyton (Jurek, to a knee injury)," Frazer said. "I mean, he's probably our best hitter, average-wise anyway. I had to pick up the slack for him."

From there, it was up to O'Neal, and he was up to the task. After an error put Marquette's leadoff man on base in the sixth inning, O'Neal got the next three men on swinging strike three's.

Then, in the bottom of the seventh inning, O'Neal got Frasier looking on his best pitch of the night: a curveball.

"I throw a '4 seam' (fastball) and a '2 seam', and my '2 seam' is my go-to pitch," O'Neal said. "But I started working in with a '12-6' curve, and that was it. I brought it up and in, and he (Frasier) couldn't adjust right, so I got him looking on it."

Colin O'Neal Strike-Out.

"He came through for us," Groleau said about O'Neal. "He threw strikes, didn't put a lot of runners on base, and made them put the ball in play."

That was the second out of the inning. O'Neal walked the next batter, but then got pinch-hitter Connor Brazeau to pop out to right field to end the game (pictured above).

Colin O'Neal got the win in relief.

It got scary for a moment as both Jurek and Levi Cunningham went for it, but Cunningham made the catch to allow the Indians to escape with the victory.

"We've got to work on Levi's voice," Groleau laughed. "We need him to speak a little bit louder because he almost ran Gus (Jurek) over on that one. But Levi came through for us."

O'Neal gave up one run, one hit, two walks, and struck out five in his four innings.

"I was just trying to keep the target low," Frazer, the catcher, said. "Because when he gets the ball up, he kind of gets roughed up. I had him throw the fastball and mix in the curveball, and it worked. He pitched a great game."

Gladstone is off until Friday, when the Indians face the Ishpeming Blue Storm in a Mid Pen League game. The Indians will play two more league games on Saturday against the Channing Railroaders. Those three games will not be broadcast on the radio, but we will have information about those games on this web page.

Date	Time	Opponent	Score	Record

4/10	5:30 PM	at Escanaba Eskymos	2 - 12 (L)

4/24	4:00 PM	at Norway Knights	2 - 3 (L)

4/24	6:00 PM	at Norway Knights	5 - 11 (L)

4/25	4:00 PM	Superior Central Cougars	9 - 5 (W)

4/25	6:29 PM	Superior Central Cougars	12 - 2 (W)

5/2	6:30 PM	at Gladstone Indians	1 - 11 (L)	7-5

5/5	10:00 AM	Menominee Red Wave Legion	5 - 0 (W)	8-5

5/5	5:00 PM	at Escanaba Eskymos	1 - 7 (L)	8-6

5/8	3:00 PM	Newberry Indians	0 - 2 (L)

5/8	5:00 PM	Newberry Indians	2 - 4 (L)

5/10	5:30 PM	Escanaba Eskymos	3 - 14 (L)	8-9

5/12	11:00 AM	Stephenson Eagles	7 - 6 (W)	9-9

5/12	6:00 PM	Negaunee Miners	4 - 1 (W)	10-9

5/14	6:30 PM	Gladstone Indians	2 - 3 (L)

5/21	4:00 PM	Negaunee Miners	4 - 5 (L)

5/21	6:00 PM	Negaunee Miners	9 - 3 (W)

5/29	3:00 PM	Negaunee Miners	3 - 7 (L)