Tournament champs: Marquette Reds capture U.P. Jr. Legion baseball title

MARQUETTE -- The Marquette Reds pulled out a narrow victory in the semifinals, then broke things open in the championship game to capture the title at the Upper Peninsula Junior American Legion tournament in Marquette on Sunday.

The Reds defeated Norway 2-1 in the semifinals on Sunday morning while Kingsford overcame Escanaba in the other semifinal at the same time on an adjacent field.

The semifinal winners then met early that afternoon with the Reds emerging with a no-hit, 12-0 victory to win the crown.

Earlier in the tourney, the Reds defeated the Eastern U.P. 10-0 on Friday, then lost to Escanaba 8-4 and defeated Gladstone 15-0 on Saturday.

The Reds are back in action at home against Gladstone at 7 p.m. today.

Here are details from each game Sunday:

Reds 2, Norway 1

On Sunday morning, Marquette's Weston Yesney broke a 1-1 tie by singling home what proved to be the game-winning run in the top of the sixth and final inning.

The game pitted a pair of excellent pitching performances as both the Reds' AJ Martin and Norway's Owen Baij threw complete games.

Martin allowed one earned run on two hits -- both singles -- as he walked four and struck out seven. Baij looked nearly as dominant, allowing two unearned runs on five hits, no walks and five strikeouts.

Norway committed four errors while the Reds had just one.

Norway jumped out with its lone run in the bottom of the first as Cam Varda singled home Landon Amundson to take a 1-0 lead.

The score remained that way until the top of the fourth, when Marquette's Jack Siik doubled, the only extra-base hit of the game, to score a run.

It remained tied until the top of the sixth when Yesney broke out his heroics.

Siik finished 2 of 3 with an RBI, while Morgan Robar and Jake Toyras each went 1 for 3 as Robar and Martin scored runs.

Baij had Norway's other hit, while Varda stole two bases and Baij and Amundson were among batters drawing a walk.

Reds 12, Kingsford 0

On Sunday afternoon, the Reds only scored in two innings, but they were big rallies as they plated five runs in the second and seven more in the fourth to end this game after four innings.

That made a winner of Marquette pitcher Aiden Steele, who threw a no-hitter and what appears to be a perfect game as Kingsford had no hits, drew no walks, had no batters hit by a pitch and had no runners reach on an error.

Steele also had four strikeouts.

In the Reds' second inning, Steele singled, Ian Sheltrow was hit by a itch and Alex Brennan walked. One run scored on a wild pitch while a Gib Jezewski groundout brought another in.

Then in the fourth, Yesney singled to score, an error brought another run in, and Martin, Steele and Owen Cardinal each had RBI singles, Steele's actually scoring two.

In the end, Martin, Cardinal and Steele each went 2 for 3 to account for more than half of the Reds' hits, all singles. Steele finished with three RBIs, while Jezewski, Yesney, Martin, Cardinal and Ian Sheltrow each had an RBI.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.