Gates Field World Series: Utah Marshalls rally to down Renegades

KEARNS — The Utah Marshalls learned a valuable lesson in their 8-6 victory over the SoCal Renegades on Thursday evening.

"A game like that tells you that's what (baseball) is all about," Marshalls head coach Sam Swenson said after his team rallied from a late deficit to remain undefeated in the Gates Field World Series at Kearns High. "You can't get too emotional; you can't let one bad at-bat get to you."

It's a good thing the Marshalls listened to their coach's advice.

The Renegades' first batter, Peter Maris, hit a leadoff single and later scored to give the southern California team an early lead.

Though the Marshalls rebounded with a second-inning run of their own — an RBI-single from catcher Zach Steirsstorfer that sent Brennon Anderson home — the Renegades laid it on thick to take a 6-3 advantage by the end of the fifth inning.

"(Alec) Cordova really pitched pretty well," Swenson said of his starting hurler, "that fifth inning was just rough. A couple of infield singles and then he made one mistake and they score four runs on us."

Cordova, who has committed to play at Cal State Fullerton next spring, struck out five batters in his five innings, but was still having a little trouble finding his groove.

"He had a rough time locating his fastball early on, but the off-speed pitches were there," Swenson said.

Mason Marshall, a future BYU Cougar, took the mound in the sixth inning, effectively cooling off the Renegade bats. Marshall walked four batters in his four innings, but gave up no hits, struck out four batters, and allowed just one run to cross the plate.

"We told him he had nothing to lose," Swenson said. "I think it was one of his better outings."

The Marshalls' bats followed the pitching effort.

Kody Davis, a Juan Diego graduate who is headed to the University of Utah, led off the home half of the seventh with a double, and the rest of the team followed as all nine players in the batting order had an at-bat in the inning.

"We told them to make it easy," Swenson said when asked what he told his team when they were losing by three runs. "Don't do too much and take the game pitch-by-pitch. We just needed to be patient. Our best at-bats were in the third and fourth rotation."

The Utah squad scored five runs in the seventh, forcing the Renegades to change pitchers twice, ultimately taking the 8-6 lead.