Marquette completes repeat, rallies in 7th to win 1A state title

CHAMPAIGN — The Marquette baseball team only held the lead once in Saturday’s Class 1A championship game against Father McGivney.

But it couldn’t have come at a better moment.

Down one run heading to the bottom seventh, the Crusaders rallied for two runs, the final one coming home on a walk-off RBI single to right field by senior Sam Mitre, to give Marquette a thrilling 6-5 win over the Griffins at Illinois Field.

It is the second consecutive state 1A championship for Marquette, which finished the season 35-3 and on an 18-game winning streak.

“It’s great for Sam,” Marquette coach Todd Hopkins said. “He was in a similar spot at state in the semis in 2022 as a freshman and wasn’t able to get it done. But I knew when he came up today there in the seventh that it wasn’t going to happen again.

“I feel like someone is going to pinch me and this is a dream. These guys are warriors in every sense of the word. What a ride.”

The fateful bottom of the seventh started with Easton Debernardi fouling off two bunt attempts against Father McGivney relief pitcher Evan Koontz before taking four straight balls to draw a walk.

“Easton been awesome for us all season and I went to him in the sixth and told him we were going to bunt, and I don’t care if there are two strikes,” Hopkins said. “I wanted to make their defense make a play. Once it went to 2-2 we were going to show bunt and slash, but Easton drew the walk to get things started.”

Alec Novotney then flared a single to center to move Debernardi to third. After Novotney stole second, a wild pitch scored Debernardi with Novotney taking third. Griffin Dobberstein walked and was on the move to second when Mitre lined a base hit down the line in right to bring in the game-winning tally.

“I really was just focusing on the now,” Mitre said. “All I was thinking was put the bat on the ball and put it out there somewhere.

“You just have to keep fighting until that final out.”

Father McGivney (38-4) scored three runs on four hits in the first off surprise starter Dobberstein.

“Alec was going to start, but after we got off the bus here, he threw up three or four times,” Hopkins said. “Give Dobberstein a ton of credit for going out there on short notice and battling to keep it close.”

Dobberstein got one back in the Cru half of the first when he turned on a pitch from Griffins’ Kannon Kamp and tucked it over the wall and just inside the foul pole in left.

“I was ready to pitch today, but yeah, not that early,” Dobberstein said. “It worked out, I had an hour to get my mind ready. I got behind on a couple hitters in the first, they are a good hitting team, and they barreled a couple balls up.

“The homer really gave me confidence to go out and pitch better.”

Dobberstein then retired 11 of the next 13 batters he faced, while Marquette tied the game in the fourth on a sacrifice fly by Grant Dose and an RBI single by Jaxsen Higgins after Mitre and Keaton Davis led off with back-to-back hits.

In the Father McGivney fifth, Novotney came on to pitch after a leadoff single. The Griffins loaded the bases before Justin Terhaar smacked a two-run single to left to make it 5-3.

Marquette got one of those runs back in their half of the frame when Dobberstein singled and came around to score on an error.

Novotney fired scoreless innings in the sixth and seventh to keep it a one-run contest.

“I felt pretty bad this morning but started to feel better as the game went along,” Novotney said. “I just had to fight through it.”

Mitre finished the game 3 for 4, while Novotney and Dobberstein each had two hits. Dobberstein allowed six hits, four earned runs, no walks and struck out two. Novotney (11-0) recorded the win, giving up four hits, one earned run with two walks (one intentional) and three strikeouts.

“We just all have the will to win,” Marquette senior catcher Keaton Davis said. “In the dugout before the bottom of the seventh you could feel the positive vibe from everyone. I just knew we were going to find a way to win.”