Dolphins' season halted before it can get started

Days after claiming the first South Florida Baseball Conference Championship in Marathon baseball history, the Dolphins were looking for another statement win in 2024, which comes with a berth in a district championship game for the first time this century. While three straight seasons of losing in the conference championship came to an end, the skid in the district semifinals would not as Somerset Silver Palms was able to hold onto a 3-2 victory on Tuesday, April 20, on the Middle Keys campus.

A hit batter, double, and Dolphins fielding error led to a pair of runs being scored by the Stallions in the second, which would be the difference in the game, as Marathon would outscore Somerset the rest of the way after Mason Thornton settled into the start, surrendering three runs, two earned, on two hits and a walk with five strikeouts across four innings of work on the mound.

After the three runs by the Stallions were plated in the top of the fourth inning, the Dolphins started to rally back on a sacrifice fly by Gabe Leal in the bottom of the frame after Dylan Ziels had picked up the second of his three hits in the contest. A two-out rally in the fifth, on a pair of walks and a single by Mason Thornton, cut the lead to a single run, but the Dolphins would leave two runners on base in the at-bat, as they did in the fourth and sixth innings, never able to even the score.

Ziels’ record-breaking career at Marathon (18-6 overall) would come to an end with two final scoreless innings from the hill striking out three and walking one, as Marathon’s postseason run, once again, came to a sudden stop as an hour rain delay brought the game to an end in the sixth inning. In attempts to make the field playable after the weather, the Dolphins players were on their hands and knees trying to clean the field but the umpires deemed it unsafe and ended the game an inning early.

“I’m absolutely crushed, to say the least,” said Marathon coach Joey Gonzalez. “Beyond devastated for my squad, for our senior boys, and for our program as a whole. To lose in a district playoff game by one run with an entire inning left to play is unimaginable. Our season comes to an end in a shortened FHSAA playoff game due to weather, no words, just heartbroken for my guys.”