Click the thumbnails to see photos and videos from the game, and to hear post-game comments from both coaches and from Isaac Sarles and Nick Pantti.

MARQUETTE---The Marquette Blues American Legion baseball team bounced back from last weekend's rough weekend in Wisconsin by posting a home win Thursday night, 8-4, over the Escanaba Cubs, at Haley Field.

It still wasn't a great performance, as the Blues made four more errors, but the pitching of Isaac Sarles and the team's five-run fifth inning at the plate was good enough to snap the four-game losing streak.
 

“Again, you look at the book, four errors, and three unearned (runs),” Marquette Manager Mark Pantti said. “We talked heavy after this game, that we've got to get back to “our baseball”, across the board. Going into Marinette, as a team, in eight games, we had six errors. Marinette was not a good look for us (20 errors in four games), and I'm glad to get the win tonight, but we still have some defensive work to do.”

Escanaba Manager Jon Bintner was equally disgusted with his team's defensive effort, as the Cubs also made four errors, leaving pitchers Isaiah Brow and Trent Turchin out to dry.

Of the 12 runs scored between the two teams in this game, 11 of them were unearned.

“Very, very sloppy,” Bintner said. “Both physical and mental errors. Some errors, and of course, they always score after you make errors like that. A leadoff walk will score all the time, too. Dropped fly balls. And throwing errors, really. And any time a guy goes from first to second on a throw to the plate (instead of to the middle of the infield), that just sets the team up for another run with another base hit."

"Three times in a row, we gave them that opportunity (in the fifth inning) to cash in from second. Big outfield like this, you're gonna be able to score on base hits from second.”

Sarles did what he normally does when pitching against an Escanaba or Gladstone team this year: win. He scattered seven hits over six innings of work, allowing four runs, and none of them were earned. Sarles struck out seven and walked only one.

“Going down 0-4 (in Marinette), that was tough, but we knew we had to clear our minds and come back here,” Sarles said. “Esky had a good tournament and we knew this would be a tough game. We really showed up today. My two-seamer (fastball) was really working today. It was going away on the lefties. They always have really good hitters. Today, it was just working and they were swinging and missing. I was feeling good out there.”

And the errors behind him?

“It's part of the game and I'm not going to get too wrapped up in that,” Sarles said. “It was better (than in Marinette). We started to clean it up, so I'm happy with that.”

Escanaba fell behind 2-0 in the bottom of the third inning when Dakota Maki smacked a two-run single after two men reached base on errors. But Escanaba tied it with two runs in the fourth on back-to-back RBI singles by Bryce Blixt and Trent Turchin, after Bon LaChance reached on a Marquette error at third base.

Escanaba scored another unearned run in the fourth inning to take a 3-2 lead, but in the bottom of the inning, Marquette batted around and scored five times. A.J. Martin, Sarles, and Nick Pantti had back-to-back-to-back RBI singles after a dropped fly ball in left field and a bad throw on a Logan Peterson bunt, and all of a sudden, it was 7-3.

Easton Miller added an RBI single in the sixth inning for Marquette, and Chase Cloutier added an RBI single in the sixth for Escanaba.

Nick Pantti had two hits in three at-bats to lead the Blues (8-5 on the season).

“Just felt good to put bat on ball again,” he said. “I think I got maybe a hit in Marinette. It felt good. But we were struggling a lot as a team with errors. Coach just told us to forget those errors and move on. 'Next Play' is our motto. We still struggled a bit with errors today, but if we can get rid of those, we can be a good team.”

Escanaba fell to 5-5 on the season. Blixt and Turchin both led the way with two hits. Brow took the loss, allowing seven runs but none of them were earned.

“Isaiah pitched a great game,” Bintner said. “His teammates were apologizing to him. That's definitely things we need to clean up going forward, starting tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow” is Friday when the Cubs face the Gladstone Indians in Gladstone. Game time is 7:30 and it will be broadcast live on FM-93.5, AM-600, and on-line at www.rrnsports.com.

Marquette will have its Alumni Game on the 4th of July, and then will return to action next Wednesday night with a doubleheader in Norway. Those games will be broadcast live on FM-100.3 and on-line at www.radioresultsnetwork.com.