Marquette wins Coca Cola slugfest (12 photos)

It started off with two teams trading five-run first innings and ended with the Marquette Blues pulling away with a pair of two-run homeruns to seal the victory.

The Coca Cola Classic Invitational baseball tournament wrapped up on Sunday at Sinclair Yards with Marquette defeating Gladwin Post 147 18-13 in the championship game.

Both teams were playing their second game of the day. Earlier, Marquette dropped a 6-5 extra innings decision to the E.U.P. Travellers to fall to 2-2 but won the tie breaker with the Soo Black Sox thanks to an 11-1 defeat of the Sox on Saturday.

Gladwin earned their way into the finals with a convincing 15-3 victory over Sudbury Bristol. The victory left Gladwin at 3-1 and avoided a logjam as a Gladwin loss would have left all five teams in the tournament at 2-2 and also would have paved the way for a Marquette/Soo championship.

In the early games, E.U.P. capitalized in extra innings and won a hard-fought 6-5 decision over Marquette. After seeing Marquette tie the game at four in the bottom of the seventh inning, E.U.P. scored a pair of runs in the top of the ninth to take a 6-4 lead. Dylan Jurasin hit a solo homerun in the bottom of the inning but it was too little too late for the Blues. Wyatt Curry stroked a pair of singles and a double.

In the other round robin game on Sunday, Gladwin earned a berth in the championship by scoring 14 unanswered runs en route to the 15-3 victory. T.J. Rynard led the way for Gladwin with a pair of homers and knocked in five runs. Greg Burgess hit a double and a pair of singles in the victory.

That paved the way for the all-Michigan final.

The game got off to a scorching start as the teams traded five run first innings. Lead changes were the name of the game as Gladwin proceeded to open up a 13-7 lead over Marquette, who managed to battle back and re-take the lead in the late stages of the game.

A pair of two-run homers by Dylan Jurasin and Preston Hutchens sealed the 18-13 victory and the tournament title for Marquette.

"It was like one of those situations where the last team up would probably win," said Marquette coach Derek Swajanen of the type of game the championship turned out to be. "We put some runs on the board and Dylan (Jurasin) come in and stemmed the tide. With the wind the way it was (for the left handed pitchers) the ball wasn't moving at all, it was just kind of hanging up there and both teams took advantage of that."

"It really was (an interesting game)," added Jurasin, who went three-for-four in the championship with a two-run homerun. "We came out here thinking it was going to be a tough game. We came out and scored five runs in the first inning and we were pretty confident then we gave up five. We scored a run in every inning and our bats came right back, it was excellent."

Swajanen also commented on the importance of Jurasin stepping up and taking on a leadership role with the team during the tournament.

"He was really big for us," Swajanen said of the tournament MVP. "Last weekend he had three homeruns, this weekend he had three or four for us. He's a young kid who has still got two full years left (at this level) after this. He's real young, but he's a real mature kid. He's done a great job. He's hit the ball really hard. He comes in and pitches and changes speed, his curveball was working really nice tonight. He's a leader and it's good. When he starts to hit the ball, others start to hit the ball."

Jurasin was also pleased with the way his tournament went as MVP. The youngster finished the tournament 7-for-17 (.411) with four homers, 12 runs batted in and also won a pair of games, including the championship where he only gave up two hits and no runs in just over four innings of work. He also struck out five batters.

"This is my second year playing for the Blues and I lived in Canada for eight years so I'm coming back and trying to show people what I've got," Jurasin said. "I came out trying to hit the ball hard, I came out trying to shut them down, it was great. There's good teams here. I just had a good weekend."

The MVP added that the Blues team is a little bit like a family of sorts as the players really came together as the tournament wore on.

"We've been working on it all season (coming together)," Jurasin said. "At the beginning of the season we weren't playing as a team and this tournament has been our turnaround."

The local entry, the Soo Black Sox, were plagued by inconsistencies throughout the tournament which played a role in their not competing for the championship. Dropping a key opening game against E.U.P., a game in which they held a 9-2 lead late, and an 11-1 loss to Marquette killed any hopes of the locals advancing to the title game.

The championship game also featured another MVP candidate in Brett Rohn, who finished the tournament having gone 13-for-19 (.684) with a homerun, three doubles, two triples and five RBI's in the tournament, including a three-for-four performance in the title game.

*** FINAL RESULTS:

Following are the complete results of the Coca Cola Classic Invitational Tournament:

Friday, June 10th

E.U.P. 10, Soo 9 Marquette 9, Sudbury 1 Soo 10, Gladwin 0

Saturday, June 11th

Sudbury 5, E.U.P. 3 Gladwin 18, E.U.P. 8 Marquette 11, Soo 1 Soo 8, Sudbury 1 Gladwin 6, Marquette 2

Sunday, June 12th

E.U.P. 6, Marquette 5 (9 Innings) Gladwin 15, Sudbury 3 Championship – Marquette 18, Gladwin 13

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS WILL BE ADDED.