The Trojans beat Baxter earlier in the day, 15-1, and the Mustangs took down Grundy Center, 14-4, to set up their matchup, and fans who found their way to the baseball diamond from other sides of the Rose Festival were treated to a tight, back-and-forth affair.

In the end it was PCM who would prevail, however, holding off multiple West Marshall attempts at a comeback victory to walk away from state center with a 9-6 win and the Rose Festival Tournament title.

Though his team didn’t win its home tournament, Trojans head coach Jerod Brown said there were a lot of encouraging things from his his guys played, particularly with how they swung the bat.

“At the plate I thought it was an improvement for us today,” he said. “We competed with two strikes, I thought our approach was better, we were aggressive but we didn’t expand the strike zone a lot so that was definitely a nice step for us. It wasn’t perfect, there is a lot of room to improve there, but that was a definite positive on the day.”

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON Ñ West Marshall senior Parker Hulbert delivers a pitch to home plate during the TrojansÕ loss to PCM in the championship game of the Rose Festival Tournament on Saturday in State Center.

Alex Dickey had the best line in the loss to PCM, going 2-for-2 with a couple of singles and two runs scored while also taking a free base twice off being hit by a pitch. Cameron Bannister and Ryan Reyerson both went 1-for-4 with a double, with Reyerson driving in a run and Bannister scoring one.

In the win over Baxter, the West Marshall (11-8) had 12 total hits, including some fresh faces like Brandt Dickey going 1-for-1 with an RBI. Jake Tollefson had the best outing against the Bolts (3-11), going 2-for-3 with two RBIs, three runs scored and two stolen bases.

Where the Trojans struggled, particularly against PCM (6-8), was both fielding the ball and allowing runners to advance off steals, wild pitches and passed balls. West Marshall had four errors against the Mustangs, but Brown said had they not given up so many free bases after allowing the original base, the guys would have been fine.

“We made some really nice defensive plays, it was just a few too many crucial mistakes that either extended innings or directly moved guys around,” Brown said. “It wasn’t always the errors, we had too many free bases when guys got on base, and that really hurt us. Not necessarily putting the runners on, but moving them around once we got them on.”

Parker Hulbert got the loss against PCM on the mound, going four innings while allowing six hits and four runs while striking out six, walking one and hitting a batter. Tollefson pitched the final three innings, giving up three hits and five runs while striking out five.

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

“Our pitchers did a decent job, all things considered,” Brown said. “We had too many freebies in the last game and PCM had a lot of good hits, but we helped them out in too many areas and that’s kind of what led to our demise there. At times it was good, at times bad, it’s just another step in the process.”

Gabe Jones earned his first varsity win of his career against Baxter, pitching a complete game while allowing two hits and no earned runs while striking out six.

“Jones got his first career win and Ben Kielman caught for us and that was the first time he’s caught varsity,” Brown said. “These tournaments are a good opportunity when you get out of conference to do some of those kind of things.”

One of the other good things Brown said his guys did was compete when needed. When they went down 3-1 to PCM, the boys fought back and got it back to a 3-2 deficit. When the Mustangs then made it 6-2 in the fifth inning, the Trojans responded back with another three runs to make it only a 6-5 hole.

“That was one of our positives today, our attitude and how we approached everything was good,” Brown said. “Sometimes with Saturday tournaments it’s hot, you are at the end of a long week, it’s easy once you give up that big inning to kind of roll over and we didn’t do that. We had a rough one on Wednesday against AGWSR, we were pretty disappointed with how we played, so for us to come back and compete that way I thought was a good step for us.”

T-R PHOTO BY THORN COMPTON

West Marshall will try to continue building on the positives on Monday when it travels north to take on Grundy Center in an NICL West Division game, starting at 7:30 p.m.

Rose Festival Tournament

At State Center

Saturday’s Games

First Round

West Marshall 15, Baxter 1

PCM 14, Grundy Center 4

Consolation Game

Grundy Center 8, Baxter 2

Championship Game

PCM 9, West Marshall 6

——

Consolation

Grundy Center 8, Baxter 1

BAXTER 000 000 1 — 1 4 5

GC 020 402 X — 8 7 5

Carter Nelson, Grants Borts and Travis Lindemoen; Garret Weldon, Cale Hendricks and Jensen Clapp. WP–Weldon (1-1). LP–Nelson (1-2). 2B–Baxter: Ian Thomson; GC: Weldon, Mathew Sternhagen. LOB–Baxter 8, GC 8.

Champshionship

PCM 9, West Marshall 6

PCM 003 031 2 — 9 9 4

WM 100 131 0 — 6 6 4

Dane Owens, Kolten Johnson, Derek Brown and Caleb Duinink; Parker Hulbert, Jake Tollefson and Josh Larson. WP–Owens (2-2). LP–Hulbert (2-2). 2B–PCM: Noah Henkenius, Olin Meinders, Duinink; WM: Cameron Bannister, Hulbert, Ryan Reyerson. LOB–PCM 8, WM 7.