Dennis Driscoll

Director of Athletic Communications 

TUCSON, Ariz. – Marian dropped a 4-3 decision to Illinois Tech on Monday morning at the Kino Sports Complex in the Tucson Invitational Games.

The Scarlet Hawks pushed across the game-winning run in the top of the 10th inning, while the Marian bats fell silent in the bottom half of the inning.

"We had plenty of opportunities but we weren't able to execute," Marian head baseball coach Jason Bartelt said. "We need to finish innings and weren't able to close them out today. We need to learn from this and bounce back."

Despite the setback, Marian found its offensive juice early.

To start the top of the first Cole Miklavcic singled through the left side and made his way to second on a Jordan DeBoer groundout to the shortstop. This brought up TJ McCoy who singled through the right side to score Miklavcic and the Sabres led 1-0 after one complete.

The Sabres' offense found pay dirt in the second inning. With one out Adam Ryan singled down the right field line and Ryan was moved to second base when the pitch hit Chase Eagan.

This brought up Miklavcic who proceeded to hit a hard grounder up the middle to score Ryan and the Sabres led 2-0.

ITU (2-1) added a run in the top of the fourth, but Marian responded in its part of the inning.

Miklavcic tripled to right field to put the speedster 90 feet from home. The next batter, Ty Gellinger, singled to center field to score Miklavcic and the Sabres led 3-1.

Bryce Taylor started the game and was awarded a no decision. The 6-foot-4 senior tossed six innings and allowed eight hits, four runs and three walks and struck out five.

"Bryce and has been in the battles before and he's been in the rotation," added Bartelt said. "We expected him to do well today – and he did. He ran out of gas in the end, but that's the way the game goes."

Miklavcic was 4-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored.

Marian returns to the diamond with a doubleheader Tuesday, March 17 against Central (2:30 p.m. CT) and Luther (6 p.m. CT).