Rushford-Peterson baseball is in the driver’s seat. They haven’t lost a play-off game yet. It’s going to take Lyle/Pacelli winning twice the same night to prevent R-P from heading to the state baseball tournament in Chaska. Jordan Aug’s club has taken a “left” to the 1A Section title game. They’ve gone “left” on a map, from Rushford and Peterson to Austin. One has to turn left off Interstate 90 to get to Riverland’s baseball complex (the site of the games). In their three wins, left-handed senior pitcher Shawn Marg has been critical. Marg was again on the mound as the Trojans (East 1-seed, 13-8) faced L/P (West 3-seed, 11-8) for the “chair” of the Section tourney. The first inning was a little dicey. A hit and an error had two Athletics on base with no out. But Marg set down L/P’s 3-4-5 batters in order. The Trojans scored in the second. Carter Weidemann led off with an infield hit, made second on a ground-out, and scored on Jake Paulson’s bad-hop RBI-single. The third was R-P’s big inning. Two walks set up Marg to help himself. The left-handed batting pitcher poked one the other way, down the left-field line. The double scored Ben Ansell, making it 2-0. It put Trojans on second and third with one out. A Weidemann sac fly made it 3-0. A Halen Schwendinger RBI-single made it 4-0. An inning later, Payton Hahn took one for the team. Back-to-back hits by Ansell and Dawson Dahl (RBI-single) made it 5-0. That was more than enough for Marg on the bump. Unnaturally, he set down 18 straight. He allowed three base runners. All three got caught leaning the wrong way. Marg’s great pick-off move put all three dead to rights, two at second base and one at first. The Athletics last gasped in the seventh. With a four-hit inning, they plated one and had the bases loaded with one out. A force-out at home and a Marg strikeout ended it. By a final of 5-1, R-P moved on to the 1A title game. The senior lefty (7 IP, 7 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, Win) picked up his second win of the play-offs, improving to 6-2 ovrerall. He also owns a save in the post-season. Marg added two hits (2-3, 2B, RBI, R). The first seven Trojan batters all did work; Hahn (1-3, R), Ansell (1-1, 2 BB’s, R), Dahl (1-2, RBI, R), Weidemann (1-2, RBI, R), Schwendinger (1-3, RB), and Paulson (1-3, RBI). Landon Skalet had the game’s best catch, a diving one down the right field line. L/P then beat W-K 8-3 in the loser out game. It will be R-P versus L/P again for the 1A Section championship.
Marg, Trojans Go Left to 1A Finals
