Left-handed hurler ruins QND baseball team’s win streak, championship dreams

PLEASANT PLAINS, Ill. — With his Quincy Notre Dame baseball team’s season on the line Saturday afternoon, Raiders coach Ryan Oden knew all hope wasn’t lost.

The Raiders trailed Maroa-Forsyth by five runs going into the bottom of the seventh inning of a Class 2A sectional championship game at Reiser Field.

“I knew we had the chance to come back,” Oden said. “This team has the ability to put up a lot of runs quickly.”

Junior catcher Michael Stupavsky gave the Raiders a glimmer of hope when he deposited a pitch over the left-field fence to make it 5-2 with none out. Unfortunately for QND, that was as good as things would get as the Trojans captured their first baseball sectional title with a 5-2 victory.

Maroa-Forsyth (31-1) will face Monticello (23-8) in Monday’s Springfield Super-Sectional at Lincoln Land Community College. Monticello beat St. Joseph-Ogden 7-1 Saturday afternoon in Decatur.

Stupavsky’s shot was one of the few hard-hit balls the Raiders managed off of Trojans lefty Evan Foster. The junior limited a potent QND offense to five hits — all of which came from the bottom three players in the Raiders’ lineup. He struck out nine over 6 ⅓ innings. He gave way to sophomore Kaiden Maurer after walking Tucker Tollerton with one out in the seventh. Maurer managed to set down the only two batters he faced for the save.

Stupavsky had two hits, including a scorching double off the left-field wall in the fourth inning.

“I was just trying to stay within myself,” he said. “In these high-pressure situations, you have to calm down. We had a pretty tough time hitting (Foster). He had pretty good stuff. We took way too many strikes. 

“We needed to put the ball in play and make them make plays.”

QND gifted the Trojans several runs early. Maroa-Forsyth jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the second, scoring as the result of two QND errors and two wild pitches.

“We had talked about not making wasted throws and them trying to capitalize,” Oden said. “We had a play where we did that. We had worked on that all week. Unfortunately, the ball got away and they did what we knew they were going to do.” 

The Trojans added another run in the top of the third inning on a run-scoring single by Andy Munjoy for a 4-0 cushion.

QND had a perfect opportunity to get back into the game in the bottom of the third. Ben Kasparie led off the inning with a walk. He moved to second when Foster threw wildly to second base on a Tollerton grounder back to the mound. Both Kasparie and Tollerton moved up a base on a wild pitch, giving QND runners at second and third and no out.

Foster wriggled out of the jam by striking out Dalton Miller and Alex Connoyer. He hit Harry Oden with a pitch before coaxing Jake Schisler into grounding to second base to close the inning.

“We didn’t get the timely hits today,” Oden said. “We have to find a way to put the ball in play there. But you have to tip your hat to their pitcher. He did a good job.”

The bottom three hitters in QND’s order went 5 for 9, while the top six hitters combined to go 0 for 18. Jack Linenfelser added two hits and Brady Kindhart had the Raiders’ other hit.

“There aren’t words to describe what (Foster) did today against that lineup.” Trojans head coach Sean Martin said. “I’ve seen (QND) play three times this year, and they’ve looked like the Yankees every time.”

The loss snapped a 23-game winning streak for the Raiders and ended their quest for the program’s first state tournament appearance since the 2004 team finished second in Class A under the old two-class system. 

“This is going to hurt and should hurt for a while,” Oden said. “If it doesn’t hurt, then you probably shouldn’t be in this program. Our ultimate goal is to win the last one. We didn’t do that today. I told them at some point you will sit back and reflect on 32 wins … and you have a lot to be proud of.”