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Parkersburg’s Owen Collins (13) slides safely into home plate as Marietta’s Luke Baumgard (26) and Carson Strahler throw during a high school baseball game Friday in Jackson Park. Parkersburg won, 10-1. (Photo by Jordan Holland)
VIENNA – Parkersburg High baseball has a clean slate.
With a 10-1 win over Marietta on Friday at Jackson Park, the Big Reds are back on track.
“We’re going to a clean slate,” said PHS head coach Alan Burns. “We just started a new season there, and we’re 1-0. The kids are focused on it. Last year we started hot and finished cold, so this year we started cold and we finish hot.
Parkersburg (5-9) is looking for a big second half, and Burns said Friday’s win showed a good recipe for success.
“You play like we did tonight, we’re going to win some games,” he said.
Ethan Marshall and Caden Parker combined to pitch a clean game as the offense poured it on in innings 2 through 4. The Big Reds scored three runs in the second, two in the third and five in the fourth. They collected 11 total hits.
Marshall got the win, pitching four innings and allowing just one unearned run in the fourth. Parker pitched the final three frames to earn the save. He worked around singles by Drew Warden and Braden Schau in the seventh by getting Carson Strahler into a game ending 4-6-3 double play.
The PHS pitching duo struck out three batters each and did not issue a walk.
“I thought the kids played really well today,” Burns said. “We need a game like that. We fall prey to games like that. Pitchers throw well. Anytime they get a runner they seem to work their way out of it well. Our kids at the plate made good adjustments and hit the ball well. It was a great game all around the world.”
Strahler led Marietta with two hits and also started on the mound and took the loss. He walked four batters in 3 1-3 innings of work. James Wakefield and Owen Riley combined to pitch 2 2-3 innings of relief.
Marietta (2-10) committed four errors, a phase of the game that has plagued the Tigers all year.
“The defense has been lacking for most of the year,” said Marietta skipper Josh McKitrick. “We made a lot of mistakes on the field.
“We are young. We have a lot of guys learning some new positions and learning how to play the game. We are working towards the second half. That is our goal.”
An error on a single to left field by Evan Elliott plated the first run of the game as Brayden Petty came from first to score. Elliott then scored on Landon Bryan’s sacrifice fly, and Evan Craven later plated Zach Shockey with a base hit to make it 3-0.
Elliott drew a bases-loaded walk before another sac fly by Bryan made it 5-0, PHS, in the third. With the bases loaded, Bryan hit a deep ball to left field. Marietta’s Izak Knighten made a nice over-the-shoulder catch to limit the damage.
The Tigers’ lone run came in the top of the fourth. Cooper Laumann’s double down the right field line got things started. He went to third on Luke Baumgard’s groundout to second and scored when Wakefield’s sharp grounder to short was broken.
Drew Woofter and Marshall each had an RBI single in the bottom of the fourth to extend the lead to 7-1. Three more runs crossed on Bryan’s bases-loaded single. Petty and Elliott both scored, and Shockey came around to score on an errant throw to home.
The Big Reds hope to carry the momentum from this win into Monday’s matchup against Parkersburg South. The first pitch is scheduled for 5 pm at Hank Greenburg Field. The Patriots won the first meeting 8-7 in eight innings.
“What hurt us in the past were our mistakes,” Burns said. “We lost at South and had five errors. That’s not possible. Our ERA is in the low 3s today and we’re hitting well. We’re about .300. We just need to clean up the defense.”
The Tigers play West Muskingum at noon on Saturday.
“We just had a lot of games in a short time, so we are tired,” McKitrick said. “It started to show a little bit that we were tired, but they worked hard and they played well.”