Marquette Blues sweep Menominee

Courtesy of the Marquette Blues

The Marquette American Legion Blues traveled to Menominee for a doubleheader on Saturday and exacted some revenge on the Menominee Red Wave.  Last week, the Red Wave took two games in Marquette and this weekend  the Blues took two on the Red Wave’s home field.  Both games were low scoring and were very good pitchers duels.

In the first, McKinley Larson threw all 8 innings for the Blues to earn the victory on the mound.  Larson struck out 14 and walked no one in the extra inning game, while his counterparts, Landen Macoux and Ryan Woods struck out 11 and walked 4.  Both sides only had four hits each in the contest.

“We knew coming in to these games that they were going to be one or two run games and we had to play sharp defense and make our opportunities count.  We were able to get that in the first game.  Mac (Larson) was throwing real well and deserved this win,” said Blues Manager Derek Swajanen.

Levi Underwood singled in the 8th.  Payton Lebombard came in to run and got to second on a wild pitch.  Trevor Bratonia singled to left and was able to score LeBombard for the game winner.  Larson was able to sit the Red Wave batters down three in a row in the bottom half of the inning for the win.

Game two was much of the same, real good pitching with opportunistic scoring by the Blues.

“Again, we knew we couldn’t make any mistakes and we did a real good job of playing solid defense and scoring when we could.  Even though we had a few mistakes, they didn’t happen in the same inning so they didn’t really hurt us,” said Swajanen.

Colin O’Neal started and went two innings and Luke Swajanen came in and finished the last five.  They struck out 8, walked only two and gave up five hits with no runs.  Riley Hegg went the distance for the Red Wave to absorb the loss.  Trevor Bratonia and Jared Tredeau led the Blues with two hits each.  Jared Tredeau singled in the 6th and was bunted over to second by Derek Stone.  Ryan Hanson had a single and scored Tredeau for the game winning run.

In the 7th, the Blues added a cushion run when Bratonia singled, advanced on a passed ball and was moved to third on a ground out by Payton LeBombard.  Tredeau then belted a double to left field to score Bratonia for the two run lead.  Luke Swajanen closed the door for the sweep.  The two wins bring the Blues to 8-5 on the season.  Their next game will be Friday at home against Gladstone.