Panther baseball drops home game to No. 4 Marion

Mt. Pleasant was neck-and-neck for four innings against No. 4 Marion on Wednesday night, but a handful of errors doomed the Panthers in the final three innings. When the dust settled, the Indians walked out with a 9-3 win.

Bryce Andreson was on the mound for Mt. Pleasant, and he held a star-studded Indian offense silent through the first four frames. The Panther offense couldn't capitalize, though, and the teams were scoreless with three innings to go.

A couple of miscues on defense led to five Marion runs in the top of the fifth. Mt. Pleasant got two back on a hit by Clayton Lowery in the bottom of the fifth, but it was still 5-2 going in to the sixth.

Marion began to run away in the sixth. Another rough defensive half-inning for the Panthers led to three more runs in the sixth. Marion put up one in the seventh and led 9-2 going in to the bottom of the final inning.

Lowery picked up another RBI on a sac fly in the seventh inning, but that's all the Panthers could muster, and Marion won for the 14th time in their last 15 games.

'It was one of those deals where we made a couple errors, and you can't against teams like that,” head coach Brent Broeker said after the game. 'They capitalized big time.”

Anderson threw all seven innings, giving up nine runs on the night, but only one of them was earned. He gave up 10 hits and two walks in the loss.

'He threw a great game,” Coach Broeker said. 'He only threw 90 pitches against the No. 4 team in the state and he went seven innings.”

Lowery went 1-2 with three RBIs to lead the offense. Chase Williamson was 2-3 with two runs scored, and Corbin Broeker scored one run. The Panthers had just three hits total in the loss.

Mt. Pleasant will travel to Eddyville for a game against Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont tonight (Friday). The Panthers are now 18-7 overall.