MARSHALL - Scott Marty still can't quite make sense of it all, either. All he knows is that his 14- to 16-year-old baseball club had an awful lot of advantages for an overwhelming underdog.
Marty's team rallied to win its last three league games to place fourth in its division and sneak into the postseason for the VFW Teen League State Tournament in Marshall.
"We knew our tournament started with those three games," Marty said. "We felt like we were in the tournament long before it started."
In a magical run riddled with gutty pitching performances, Dylan Cleaveland just may have shown the most visceral fortitude in the championship game against Oconomowoc.
After being downright rocked in two innings of work, Cleaveland's only summer pitching work, during the regular season, he turned an over-confident Oconomowoc squad into the defeated.
"He remembered his line, and believe me, they knew the line too," Marty said. "But they were out of pitching and we knew they were."
Cleaveland worked 5-plus innings and allowed four earned runs. His club jumped all over Oconomowoc miscues during an 8-run bottom of the second inning.
Jamie Moats, who worked the first six innings of the tourney's opener, took the ball with a 10-7 lead, one out and the bases loaded, to earn the save in Sunday night's finals.
But not without a heady pointer.
Marty jogged out to the mound and urged Moats to throw home and get the lead runner if he should field a come-backer.
"I wanted to take away the worst-case scenario," Marty said.
Sure enough, the batter rapped a one-hopper back to Moats, who triggered a title-sealing, 1-2-3 double play.
In Marty's sixth season coaching many of the ballplayers, including son Mitch Marty, he was elated to see a long, never-easy project come to fruition.
"It was so cool to see these kids put up with my crap long enough to have something great like this come out of it," Marty said.
In Friday afternoon's opening round, Monroe made Deerfield pay for a poor decision. The Deerfield squad won a coin toss and opted to play Monroe in the first round. The result was an 18-2 thwomping, even though Marty's club didn't know about the bulletin board material until after the victory.
Monroe survived Jefferson in Saturday's quarterfinal round, much thanks to the rubber arm of Logan Wells, who threw 110 pitches and got the complete-game win.
Cleaveland helped his hurler out of a fifth-inning jam. With one out, the bases loaded and three Jefferson runs already in, Cleaveland snared a short-hop smash at the hot corner, stepped on third and fired across to turn two and stop the bleeding. As a result, Monroe retained a 6-3 lead and reclaimed the momentum.
"Not making that play would have given them all the momentum in the world," Marty said.
Monroe earned its title birth Sunday at noon with a 10-0 blanking of Sun Prairie, which won both of the teams' regular-season meetings.
Mitch Marty threw 102 pitches to get the complete-game shutout and, somewhere between him being on the hill and the admiration for Sun Prairie's club, the proud papa was never quite comfortable.
"When you're playing a team you respect, a 10-0 lead just doesn't feel like enough," Marty said.
Kramer Henning and Mike Turek stuffed the offensive statsheets over the weekend. Kramer hit a monstrous .692 with a 1.077 slugging percentage with seven RBIs and five runs scored.
Turek hit .429 with six RBIs and seven runs scored.
Marty (.474 OBP, 6R) and Moats (.600 OBP, 5R) refused to take breaks when not pitching and they set the table for the big boppers scoring 6 runs with a .474 OBP.
Marty's team rallied to win its last three league games to place fourth in its division and sneak into the postseason for the VFW Teen League State Tournament in Marshall.
"We knew our tournament started with those three games," Marty said. "We felt like we were in the tournament long before it started."
In a magical run riddled with gutty pitching performances, Dylan Cleaveland just may have shown the most visceral fortitude in the championship game against Oconomowoc.
After being downright rocked in two innings of work, Cleaveland's only summer pitching work, during the regular season, he turned an over-confident Oconomowoc squad into the defeated.
"He remembered his line, and believe me, they knew the line too," Marty said. "But they were out of pitching and we knew they were."
Cleaveland worked 5-plus innings and allowed four earned runs. His club jumped all over Oconomowoc miscues during an 8-run bottom of the second inning.
Jamie Moats, who worked the first six innings of the tourney's opener, took the ball with a 10-7 lead, one out and the bases loaded, to earn the save in Sunday night's finals.
But not without a heady pointer.
Marty jogged out to the mound and urged Moats to throw home and get the lead runner if he should field a come-backer.
"I wanted to take away the worst-case scenario," Marty said.
Sure enough, the batter rapped a one-hopper back to Moats, who triggered a title-sealing, 1-2-3 double play.
In Marty's sixth season coaching many of the ballplayers, including son Mitch Marty, he was elated to see a long, never-easy project come to fruition.
"It was so cool to see these kids put up with my crap long enough to have something great like this come out of it," Marty said.
In Friday afternoon's opening round, Monroe made Deerfield pay for a poor decision. The Deerfield squad won a coin toss and opted to play Monroe in the first round. The result was an 18-2 thwomping, even though Marty's club didn't know about the bulletin board material until after the victory.
Monroe survived Jefferson in Saturday's quarterfinal round, much thanks to the rubber arm of Logan Wells, who threw 110 pitches and got the complete-game win.
Cleaveland helped his hurler out of a fifth-inning jam. With one out, the bases loaded and three Jefferson runs already in, Cleaveland snared a short-hop smash at the hot corner, stepped on third and fired across to turn two and stop the bleeding. As a result, Monroe retained a 6-3 lead and reclaimed the momentum.
"Not making that play would have given them all the momentum in the world," Marty said.
Monroe earned its title birth Sunday at noon with a 10-0 blanking of Sun Prairie, which won both of the teams' regular-season meetings.
Mitch Marty threw 102 pitches to get the complete-game shutout and, somewhere between him being on the hill and the admiration for Sun Prairie's club, the proud papa was never quite comfortable.
"When you're playing a team you respect, a 10-0 lead just doesn't feel like enough," Marty said.
Kramer Henning and Mike Turek stuffed the offensive statsheets over the weekend. Kramer hit a monstrous .692 with a 1.077 slugging percentage with seven RBIs and five runs scored.
Turek hit .429 with six RBIs and seven runs scored.
Marty (.474 OBP, 6R) and Moats (.600 OBP, 5R) refused to take breaks when not pitching and they set the table for the big boppers scoring 6 runs with a .474 OBP.
