CARLETON – Bubba Bezeau knew he had a lot of pitching.

When the Monroe coach held a practice Monday for the Red Team in the Monroe County All-Star Baseball Game, he asked who wanted to pitch.

Nearly every hand went up.

Bezeau just didn’t know how many good pitchers he had.

The Red sent seven pitchers to the mound Wednesday at Airport’s Ray Kurtansky Field and got a lot of great performances in a 5-3 victory over the Blue.

One gave up three hits and two runs and another yielded a run on two hits. The other five combined to give up just three hits and struck out eight in seven shutout innings.

“They all threw well,” Bezeau said of St. Mary Catholic Central’s Brent Spaulding and Andrew Pope, Gibraltar Carlson’s Robert Carmack, Luke Gilleran of Flat Rock, New Boston Huron's Cole Grunwald, and Tristin Panza and Caleb Winkelman of Monroe. “I expected some of them to get hit. There were plenty of hitters on the other side. Those players were here for a reason.”

The seven pitchers used a lot of ways to get hitters out.

“They all had different styles,” Bezeau noted. “Some just slung it and other really reared back. All of them threw strikes.”

Panza, who pitched sparingly for Monroe during the regular season, turned in a perfect inning with three strikeouts and Winkelman got the save by fanning three in the ninth inning.

Spaulding and Carmack got the game started with two scoreless innings each.

“Their pitchers were tremendous,” said Jefferson’s Tyler Bondy, who coached the Blue.

The Blue had some strong pitching of its own.

Bondy’s squad actually outhit the Red 8-5. Cole Crouch (Whiteford), Lukas Ledingham (Jefferson), Jett Isaacs (Milan) and Evan Morelock (Milan) gave up just two runs and three hits over the final seven innings.

The Red just made more of its chances.

Grunwald tripled with one out in the first and scored on a sacrifice fly by Ashton Elmer of Monroe. The Red turned a walk by Spaulding and an infield hit by Milan’s Ryder Knox into two runs in the second with the help of some wild pitches.

The lead grew to 4-0 in the fifth when Elmer singled and came around to score on a single by Braden Setzler of Monroe.

After the Blue closed within 4-2 in the fifth, the Red tacked on an insurance run in the eighth when Elmer singled and scored on an error.

Elmer carried the biggest bat in the game. The Madonna University recruit went 2-for-2, scored twice and drove in a run.

“We all knew each other,” he said of his Red teammates. “It was a lot of fun. It was great for my last high school game.”

Elmer tipped his cap to the pitchers.

“They were all great,” he said. “They threw good. I trusted them all.”

The top of the batting order produced all the runs for the Red.

Back-to-back doubles by Milan’s Jett Isaacs and Cole Giesige of Whiteford plated the first run in the fifth, then Ledingham singled Giesige home.

The final run came in the eighth when Airport’s Adam Goins drew a walk, was sacrificed to second by Isaacs and rode home on a single by Morelock.

“It was nice being around the top players in the area,” Bondy said.

Giesige went 2-for-3 with a double for the Blue and also made a tremendous catch in centerfield.