Simon Hits for the Cycle, Leads Offensive Explosion in Win Against Marmion
Loyola Academy football wrapped its abbreviated six-game spring schedule on April 23 with a blowout win over Marist, capping a perfect 6–0 season with a Friday night celebration.
At 8 the next morning, junior wide receiver Roger Simon was back on the field. Well, the diamond. Less than 12 hours had passed, but he was already “in baseball mode” again.
Simon has been juggling football, track and field and baseball since arriving at Loyola.
“He works his tail off,” baseball head coach Chris Ackels said. “The multi-sport athlete thing is impossible if you don’t have a great work ethic and great time management.
“And Roger’s got both of those things.”
The 6-foot-2, three-sport athlete can do it all, whether it’s turning a crossing route into a 87-yard touchdown or a high fastball into a home run. That was evident during Saturday’s 23–12 victory against Marmion Academy when the solid yet blistering fast Simon hit for the cycle.
His six-RBI performance came about a week and a half after he spun 6.2 innings of shutout ball in a win over Providence Catholic. Simon wasn’t the only Rambler barreling pitches. Six others had multi-hit games, including sophomore catcher Connor Lasch and senior designated hitter Declan Dunham, both of whom had three hits.
Loyola dug itself out of a 5–1 hole in the third inning with a five-run surge. It was a response that the Ramblers failed to muster against Marmion on Thursday after the Cadets dropped a five-run inning of their own in the fourth frame, which proved to be the difference.
Bouncing back has been the theme of 2021 for Loyola.
“Same 12-seed mentality,” said Dunham, a team captain. “Just think that, no matter what the score is — if we’re up 10 or down 10 — we have to grind out at-bats, grind out our defense. Just keep working. Every inning, even if we’re down 10, it’s 0–0. Even if we’re up 10, it’s 0–0.”
Simon broke the game open in the sixth after Marmion walked four straight batters. Before the at-bat, Ackels told his versatile center fielder, “Don’t be a hero.”
“Don’t be a hero, be Roger Simon,” Ackels explained postgame. “Because Roger’s good enough.”
Simon took Cole Green deep to right-center, driving in Eddy Mahoney, Mikey Regan, and Noah Klein. It was the heart of a nine-run inning that witnessed three Marmion pitching changes.
The next inning, Loyola piled on seven more runs, three of which were a byproduct of a Simon home run that straddled the left field line.
The 23-run outburst gave the Ramblers their second win in their last six games and pushed them back to .500 ahead of the season’s home stretch.
“This is what we needed,” Simon said. “This is a momentum starter.”
