Marquette Blues win in extra innings

Courtesy of the Marquette Blues

The Marquette American Legion Post 44 Blues squared off on Wednesday against the Kingsford Blues and came away with a 4-3 extra innings win.

The Marquette Blues scored 3 runs in the top of the first and cruised until the bottom of the 7th, where Kingsford scored 3 runs to force the extra innings.

In the 8th inning, Ryan Hanson led off with a single and McKinley Larson came up and smacked a double to left field.  Hanson rounded third and headed for home for the possible game leading run.

He slid wide around the Kingsford catcher, who ended up dropping the ball and Hanson crawled back to the plate for the run.  Marquette was unable to get any more insurance
runs, but it was all that was needed for Trevor Bratonia to close the game.

Bratonia came on in relief of McKinley Larson in the 6th inning.  Leading the way offensively for Marquette were Hunter Larson (3-4), Ryan Hanson (2-4), McKinley Larson (2-3) and Ryan Walther (2-4).

“We had some real timely hitting today.  Scoring 3 in the first at bat was a big goal for us today and we accomplished that.  The boys then played very well defensively up til the 7th inning.  For Hanson to score on the hit by Mac (Larson), that was great base running on his part,” said Blues manager Derek Swajanen.