ANKENY — The Marshalltown baseball team spent the days leading up to its Class 4A Substate 4 first-round game against Ankeny Centennial preparing to face Major League Baseball pitching prospect Joey Oakie.

What the Bobcats got was Jaguars senior Sean Stewart, and not much else.

Stewart pitched a five-inning perfect game and fifth-ranked Ankeny Centennial eliminated Marshalltown from the postseason with a 10-0 triumph on Friday night.

Stewart worked quickly and efficiently, throwing 37 of his 43 pitches for strikes while greeting 13 of 15 Bobcat batters with an opening strike.

Marshalltown (5-31) made ready for its playoff opener by pumping up the speed on the pitching machine and taking live batting practice from assistant coach Carson Johnson, but it wasn’t enough to help the Bobcats break through on this night. MHS struck out in eight of 15 at-bats and failed to take advantage of an otherwise strong start by junior right-hander Zander Stupp.

“The only thing you can ask for at the end of the day is to give us a chance,” MHS head coach Colton Hanke told KFJB after the game. “Stupp kinda struggled the past few outings, but tonight he seemed a little bit more focused in. It comes down to the defensive side — if you can’t make the plays that occured throughout the game, it’s a whole different ballgame for us, so props to Zander to give us at least a chance.”

Centennial (29-10) scored half of its runs with two outs, highlighted by a two-run double for Will Morris in the bottom of the first inning. Preston Glatt reached on a one-out single and the Bobcats intentionally walked Oakie with two outs to face Morris, who hammered an 0-2 pitch into the gap in left-center field.

A subsequent error — one of four for the Bobcats on this night — plated Morris for an early 3-0 Jaguar advantage.

Centennial scored four more times in the third and added three runs in the fourth as Stewart held the Bobcat bats in check.

“Towards the end of last week we started to prep for this and the emphasis was just to swing and go off of that,” Hanke said. “If the kids weren’t willing to start off with just swinging the bat, then you don’t have a chance of putting balls in play.

“You can’t put it in play if you don’t swing. Kids were able to at least do that part of it, it just didn’t work out in our favor.”

Eighth-grader Garrett Thede hit a looping liner that Oakie caught in left field in the bottom of the third, and Stupp’s long fly ball to left-center was gloved in the fifth, but those were the only batted balls by the Bobcats to reach the outfield.

Stupp ended with five strikeouts, one walk and two hit batsmen. He allowed 10 hits and eight earned runs in the finale, but Hanke said his junior right-hander pitched better than the final stats indicated.

“Stupp was able to be around the plate more tonight and make them put the ball in play for our defense to give us a chance,” Hanke said. “However, he left a few pitches up at times and we had defensive mistakes that costed us free bases and ultimately runs.

“Hopefully it gives him a little bit of footing going into next year to build off of this and know that if he continues to work in the offseason then there’s a stronger chance of success. We’ve just gotta keep building guys up around him and help our young guys become confident in themselves and lock down on mistakes.”

Marshalltown fell to 14-1 all-time against Centennial, which advances to host the Substate 4 final on Wednesday night against the winner of Monday’s semifinal between Dowling Catholic and Des Moines Roosevelt.

The Bobcats return all but two seniors — catcher Caleb Kusserow and center fielder Dale Greene — as the rebuilding continues.

“Thanks to Kusserow and Greene for their efforts this year as seniors,” Hanke said. “Our emphasis from the get-go has been just making sure that the young kids like Thede and (Luke) Stalzer and Ashton (Wright) and all those young guys realize they still have a legitimate full career left. They’re facing juniors and seniors and if they just keep progressing and they put in the work, if they continue to stick with it and we make sure they’re supported that way, there’s a long career left for them.”