Saint Ignatius' Marques Pagan, wearing a smile that brought some warmth to an otherwise frigid Saturday in Strongsville, looked out at the scoreboard and said: “Yeah, I definitely had to work for it.”
And his work was more than effective.
With his team clinging to a one-run lead, Pagan, a 6-foot-4 junior right-hander, came out of coach Brad Ganor's bullpen in the bottom of the fifth inning and, with the support of an insurance run in the top of the sixth, saved the Wildcats' 8-6 victory over perennial baseball power Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin in the annual Strongsville Dugout Club Tournament.
Saint Ignatius, with Pagan blanking the hard-hitting Lions over the final 2 1/3 innings, capped off a 2-0 day in Strongsville. The Wildcats, who now stand 10-1 on the season, turned back the host Mustangs, 11-8, in Saturday's opener. Pagan's effort also enabled his fellow reliever and basketball teammate – 6-7 junior right-hander Mason Halter – to earn his first victory on the varsity level.
“Marques did a great job,” said Coach Ganor, whose Wildcats will attempt to go 3-0 in the Dugout Club Tournament when they face Mentor on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. “Those were his first big innings this year. He's had an inning here and an inning there this season, but I thought he did a great job of coming in, in a big spot! They (the Lions) can swing the bats, one through nine, so I'm pretty happy with the job he did.”
As has been the case throughout the spring, Saint Ignatius' offense also did its job.
Trailing, 4-1, with one out on nobody on in the top of the fifth, the Wildcats rang their aluminum to the tune of six runs and a 7-4 lead. The key hits were a single down the left-field line by senior center fielder Kory Gillissie, a two run bases-loaded single by junior first baseman Mike Horejsei, a two-run double by senior third baseman Mike Burke that put the 'Cats in front, 5-4, and a two-run base hit through the left side of the infield by junior designated hitter Tyler Kette.
NDCL (7-1), which saw its 14-game winning streak come to an end, a mark that dated back to last season, closed to 7-6 in the bottom of the fifth.
Enter Pagan.
Pagan ended the fifth inning by coaxing a 1-3 ground out. After a leadoff double by senior second baseman Zach Seybert and a clutch, two-out sinking liner to left field by Horejsei made it 8-6, Pagan set the Lions down in order in the bottom of the sixth.
Throwing smoothly and confidently, Pagan worked around a walk in the bottom of the seventh with two of his three strikeouts. He ended the game with a called strikeout that seemed to fool the NDCL batter.
“My responsibility today was to go in there and throw strikes,” Pagan said. “As a relief pitcher, you have to come in and get ahead in the counts and let your fielders make plays. Everything worked good, for the most part. The fastball looked good and the change-up was working very well. I was going to attack them with the fastball, inside and out.”
Saint Ignatius 11, Strongsville 8
The Wildcats broke open a scoreless game with two runs in the top of the fourth inning and went on to put up three runs in each of the next three innings.
Senior right-hander David Deliz (3-1) was in command as he pitched six solid innings, yielding one run on five hits and striking out six.
However, unlike the NDCL game, when pitching coach T.J. Donovan '94 got a strong fourth inning from Halter and the impressive finish by Pagan, Saint Ignatius' bullpen became unglued.
Strongsville (4-6) , which is coached by the baseball-savvy Josh Sorge '91, made a game out of it by rolling a seven spot in the bottom of the seventh.
Along with Deliz's effort on the mound, Saint Ignatius had several offensive contributions en route to its 11 runs.
Seybert was 2-for-2 with two doubles, an RBI, a run scored and two key sacrifice bunts. Gillissie went 2-for-3 with a walk, two RBI and two runs scored, Horejsei was 2-for-4 with an RBI and three runs scored, and Burke had three hits in four at-bats with two RBI and a run scored. For the day, Burke, the 'Cats' all-time single-season leader with a .573 batting average in '09, had five runs batted in.
“Whatever the sign Coach Ganor gives me, I just try to perform and execute it the best I can,” Seybert said of his sacrifice bunts against Strongsville. “NDCL last year was a debacle (a one-sided loss in Geauga County). So today was big for our team chemistry and in moving forward. Yeah, we wanted some payback.”