photo by: Andrew Grimm

Photo by Andrew Grimm John Marshall's Jacob Cisar delivers against Steubenville. He threw a complete game shutout for the Monarchs in a 3-0 win.

STEUBENVILLE — The third time was the charm for John Marshall.

The Monarchs came to the Crimson Complex Wednesday for a third meeting with Big Red after falling to Steubenville twice this season, a regular season contest back in March and last week in the OVAC tournament.

This time, however, it was JM emerging victorious. Jacob Cisar fired a complete game shutout, Hayden Hughes finished with three hits and Cain Martin drove in a pair of runs to lead the Monarchs to a 3-0 win on the Players’ Field.

“We didn’t hit the ball a ton, we had five and Hughes has three of them … but we had enough to get it done,” JM head coach Mark Cisar said. “We have to do a better job of timely hitting, but we got the job done today. It was a good high school game.

“They beat us twice this year, they beat us when it really counted, but it’s good to get one back and hopefully it gets us going in the right direction.”

For Big Red (12-9), they had a couple of key chances to get runs across, but did not find a way to change the zero on the scoreboard.

AJ Borsch doubled to lead off the second inning, but was thrown out trying to turn it into a triple. The next three batters hit ground balls that likely would have scored him had he been safe at third.

An inning later, Mason Chmielorski was on third with one out but was tagged out in a play at the plate trying to score on a ground ball.

Big Red had several other hard-hit balls that went right at Monarchs players and did not drop in. The loss was the fifth-straight for Big Red since their win over JM in the OVAC tournament a week earlier.

“We hit the ball hard and nothing fell and they made all the plays when they needed to,” Big Red head coach Justin Banks said. We’d get guys on, they’d get a double play here, make a play there and Jacob threw a great game. It just went their way today.”

Jaggar Rawson had a solid outing on the mound for Big Red, allowing three runs in six innings while striking out three and walking five. He settled in and put up three-straight zeros after giving up a couple runs in the second to allow Big Red a chance to hang around.

“Jaggar pitched a heck-of-a game and Nolan (Blackburn) came in and held it, but the bats just weren’t there today,” Banks said. “We’ve just got to put it together. We have to put it together, hit, field and pitch well in the same day. We do that, we’ll be OK.

“Our guys are still competing, they battled to the last out. I’m not mad at that. We just have to put it all together, if we do that, look out.”

The Monarchs (18-9) struck first, plating two in the top of the second after a scoreless first inning. Hughes’ second hit of the game opened the scoring after the bottom of the order had drawn walks to load the bases, then Martin hit a sac fly to center to make it 2-0.

“Getting the lead like that is a big help because that allows the pitcher to go out there and go after guys,” coach Cisar said. “It allows the pitcher to attack the hitter and be himself.”

That proved to be more than enough cushion for Jacob Cisar.

“Jacob was outstanding on the mound, throwing strikes and being very efficient,” coach Cisar said. “He was on, he was changing speeds and mixing it up, throwing his fastball, curveball and changeup. The last inning he shook me off, I called a curveball and he wanted to sneak (a fastball) by and he did for the last out. He had them guessing up there and that was huge.”

JM added another run in the top of the sixth, Martin hitting an RBI single with two outs.

UP NEXT

John Marshall: Hosts Washington out of the Eastern Panhandle on Friday.

Big Red: Takes on Clay and Twinsburg in a tri at Twinsburg on Saturday.