OTTAWA – When Marquette pitcher Alec Novotney is on his game it doesn’t really matter if he follows a scouting report on the opposition or not … even if there is one.
Against rival Seneca, the Crusaders sophomore scattered four singles, striking out seven without walking a single Fighting Irish hitter to lead his club to a 10-0 victory in a key Tri-County Conference game at Masinelli Field on Tuesday.
Novotney’s Crusader teammates backed him up with 10 hits off two Seneca pitchers, three of those knocks coming in the bottom of the second inning when the last four hitters in the MA lineup reached and scored, staking Novotney to a 5-0 lead.
Of those total hits, No. 9 batter Grant Dose had three, including a double, and he drove in three runs. No. 7 batter Charlie Mullen also had three hits, including a triple, double and an RBI to help lift Marquette to 19-1 overall and 10-1 in the conference.
“Alec did very well, and so did the guys calling pitches for him. [Pitching coach] Brad Waldron did a nice job of mixing it up and Alec was hitting his spots. That’s huge,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said. “I don’t think [Seneca] was getting comfortable at all up there and that’s a credit to those two. Plus our defense made some pretty good plays behind them, too. We were clean.
“It was great to see that second inning and that they kept tacking on and tacking on. We played a pretty good game, but obviously they’ll be ready to go for us [at 4:30 p.m. in Seneca] on Thursday.”
Paxton Giertz had half of the hits for the Irish (18-6, 9-4 in the T-C) in support of losing pitcher Austin Aldridge and reliever Chase Buis.
Novotney helped himself with a leadoff single in the first, scoring on a Sam Mitre groundout before the bottom half exploded in the second inning. A walk to Anthony Couch and a Mullen single led to a run-scoring hit by Higgins.
Grant Dose followed with a crucial two-RBI double, and later Carson Zellers had a sacrifice fly to make it 5-0.
Meanwhile, Novotney retired the first nine batters he faced before Giertz slapped a high-bouncing grounder over Zellers at third base for the first hit. He surrendered a soft single to right to Josh Lucas in the fifth and then two infield singles, one each for Giertz and Kenny Daggett, and that was it.
“We didn’t really have a scouting report. I just went out there and pitched and did what I always try to do, always get ahead and then spin one after that,” Novotney said. “I felt pretty good, the same as I had the last few times I pitched, but I had good control of my curveball early in the counts and then put them away with the slider and the fastball.”
The Crusaders got another run in the fourth on a double by Mullen and a Dose single, and two more in the fifth on doubles by Mitre and Keaton Davis, a Couch grounder and Mullen’s triple.
Against Buis in the sixth, Dose singled and Novotney reached when his fielder’s choice bouncer was misplayed. Both later scored on wild pitches.
“Austin started off with some decent stuff, but credit them,” Seneca coach Tim Brungard said. “They hit the ball hard against him and capitalized on too many errors on our side. Those compounded things into big innings. Tip your hat to them and to Novotney. He had every pitch going today for a strike early.
“This was one of those days when Marquette just flat out beat us. We’ll give it a shot again on Thursday. We feel going into that one, we’ll have a little better idea what to throw to certain guys in certain situations, certain counts. Thursday’s a new day.”
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