Instead, a 14-3, five-inning loss to Gilbert served as an unsettling reminder of how this season has gone for the youthful Bobcats.

Marshalltown fell behind on the mound and on the scoreboard right out of the chute and suffered a run-rule-shortened loss to the Tigers on Monday night at the MHS diamond, falling to 5-30 heading into Friday’s Class 4A Substate 4 first-round pairing with No. 5 Ankeny Centennial (27-10).

The Bobcats would need to pull off a stunning upset in the substate opener to match last year’s win total (6), but Monday’s performance gave pause to MHS head coach Colton Hanke.

“It kinda creates a few questions going into Friday night,” he said. “Offensively we were ready to swing the bats a little more compared to some other nights, so that would probably be the positive from tonight, but it doesn’t do you any good when you’re down 14-1 already heading into the last inning.”

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE - Marshalltown second baseman Luke Stalzer, left, applies the tag on Gilbert’s Blake Bell to end the first inning of Monday’s baseball game at MHS. Gilbert got all the offense it would need before this play, scoring four times in an eventual 14-3, five-inning victory over the Bobcats.

The visiting Tigers (7-19) scored four times in the top of the first inning, sending its entire lineup to the plate against MHS junior right-hander Zander Stupp. Gilbert tallied four runs on five hits and two walks to go along with three Bobcat errors.

Stupp, the Bobcats’ top performer on the pitching mound this season, struggled with his command and fell behind Gilbert’s batters too often according to Hanke.

“Not being able to find the zone when we needed to, that was the hardest part about tonight’s loss,” Hanke said. “It starts with Stupp and if he doesn’t settle in, that makes for a very long night.”

Stupp got the gate in the top of the third inning, when Gilbert got on the board with another four-spot. Sam Greazel pitched 1 2/3 frames, including a 1-2-3 fourth, but the Tigers eventually got to him, too.

Caleb Kusserow surrendered three runs in his one inning of relief, but the Bobcats missed their chance to end the at-bat earlier than they did and saw the game end early as a result. The Tigers notched five runs in the fifth to take a 14-1 lead, and Marshalltown’s last gasp got two runs across in the bottom half.

MHS senior Dale Greene was 3-for-3 with an RBI grounder in the bottom of the fifth. JJ Schoenfelder was 2-for-3 with an RBI single in the bottom of the second, but Gilbert was already in front 5-1 by that point.

Kusserow reached on a one out error in the fifth, moved up on Tayven Dutton’s single, advanced on a walk to Greazel, and scored on Stupp’s squibber back to the mound. Greene got Dutton across on an infield single to the left side, but Tiger left-hander Tommy McGuire got out of one last jam to get the complete-game victory.

Stupp, Greene and Schoenfelder all singled consecutively in the bottom of the second to account for the Bobcats’ first run, but MHS left two runners stranded.

McGuire allowed one earned run on six hits and one walk while striking out five in five innings. He needed just 60 pitches to go the distance, throwing 22 first-pitch strikes to 24 batters faced.

Bobcat pitchers had a first-strike percentage of .568 in the loss. Marshalltown also made six errors piled up against Gilbert’s 18 hits.

The Tigers, with a team batting average of .251 going into the game, batted .563 (18-for-32) on this night.

“You take the positives and then focus in on the weaknesses, and tonight it was the pitching side,” said Hanke. “You just continue with the reps. We have three days to prepare to try and get our guys mentally ready for Friday night.”

McGuire, Alden Short and Tripp Sturgill had three hits apiece to lead Gilbert, which snapped a three-game losing streak. Short and Sturgill both drove in three runs, while Short and McGuire both scored three times.

Marshalltown and Ankeny Centennial square off at 7 p.m. on Friday in Ankeny.