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MARQUETTE — It was a game to remember for Keith Juidici.

The Negaunee Miners baseball player not only shut down the Marquette Redmen on the mound, but went 2 for 3 with six RBIs, including a grand slam in the fourth inning, to lift the Miners to a 16-3 victory in Game 1 of their doubleheader on Monday afternoon at the Gerard Haley Memorial Field in Marquette.

Marquette rallied back to take Game 2 by a score of 11-4, with the game called due to darkness after four innings.

Marquette batter Logan Peterson, right, and Negaunee catcher Nico Lukkarainen wait for a pitch during their high school baseball game played at the Gerard Haley Memorial Field in Marquette on Monday. (Journal photo by Travis Nelson)

The first game was also shortened to five innings due to the run rule as Juidici gave up three runs on five hits while striking out eight Redmen.

The lefty is also currently the statewide leader with a .595 batting average, and is also in the top six in both slugging and on-base percentage. Juidici showed off his bat in this one, too, with a two-run single before sending an opposite field blast into left field. A strong gust of wind may or may not have helped guide the homer out of the park, but after hitting the wall at least four times this season, his coach was happy to see his hitting finally rewarded.

“Keith is a stud, and he’s playing great,” Negaunee coach Jason Siik said. “He had a wind-aided grand slam today, which made him feel good. He deserves it, he’s been hitting the ball hard, so it’s finally nice to see one get out.”

Negaunee as a whole got off to a strong start by scoring four runs in the top half of the first inning. From the beginning, it clearly wasn’t Marquette’s game as pitcher Nash Riipi suffered an injury in warm-ups and he was unable to go. The Miners took advantage and batted around to take the four-run lead.

Howard Johnson led off the second inning for the Miners just like the first, getting on board with a single. Following a stolen base, overthrow and wild pitch, Johnson made his way home.

The Redmen got out of a jam in the top of the third after the Miners stranded Brenten Belanger on third base. MSHS also got a run back in the third with a sacrifice RBI as Logan Peterson scored Ashton Demboski.

The Miners came out in the fourth loading the bases with none out after a single by Eli Van Buren, a dropped ball off the bat of Johnson and bunt single by Evan Gauthier. Juidici came up next and sent his deep drive in left field for the grand slam to make it 9-1.

Negaunee didn’t stop there as Gatlin Karvonen hit a two-run double after back-to-back hits from Nico Lukkara

inen and Braiden Noskey to make it 11-1.

“We’ve finally started to score some runs, so we’ll use that as our momentum,” Siik said. “(Finally) having practice is showing off and paying off in the game; it’ll help us a lot. We can keep practicing, and we can keep working on everything to get sharper, quicker and faster.”

Marquette didn’t give up on the offensive end, and scored two runs in the bottom half of the fourth after a hard-hit ball by Luke Mead got under Belanger’s glove at shortstop for a two-run single. Negaunee was able to take advantage of a couple pitching changes to close the door on any chance of a Marquette comeback by scoring three runs just on walks in the fifth. Another was from a wild pitch, and the other was off an error.

“It was a lot of walks, and you make those couple errors early on,” Marquette coach Derek Swajanen said. “We’ve been doing it all season long here, but you have to try and recover from it. They made the basic plays tonight, and we just didn’t make the basic plays.”

In Game 2, the Redmen responded and played a lot of fresh faces in their victory.

Marquette is back in action at 5 p.m. today on the road against Escanaba, while Negaunee will next be in action at 4 p.m. Thursday hosting Kingsford.

Travis Nelson can be reached by email at tnelson@miningjournal.net.

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