![Marine City Cardinal Mooney baseball](/sites/default/files/2021-04/210420_Mooney_2H.jpg)
Cardinal Mooney Confidently Building on Newfound Success
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
April 20, 2021
Rocco Comito could see signs of good things to come during his freshman season on the Marine City Cardinal Mooney baseball team.
He just didn’t know how good.
“I didn’t see this at all,” said Comito, now a senior. “I thought we were going to be good eventually, but not where we’re at now.”
Comito and his teammates won the school’s first Regional title since 1997 during the 2019 season, and after the 2020 season was cancelled, they’ve come back looking for more. Mooney is the preseason No. 2 team in the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association Division 4 rankings, and has started 5-1.
“Honestly, it feels amazing,” said Comito, who was an all-state selection at catcher in 2019. “Just to be part of it all.”
Comito and classmates Anthony DiGiuseppe and Tommy Gill, who are the lone seniors on this year’s team, did have some success immediately, as Mooney won a District title in 2018. That was the school’s first since 2010, though, and when Mike Rice had taken over the program before the 2017 season, the Cardinals were struggling to put enough players on the field let alone make any type of postseason run.
Eight players came to Rice’s first tryout, forcing him to find athletes roaming the small Catholic school’s hallways to fill out a roster.
“It was an eye opener,” said Rice, a 1994 graduate of Harper Woods Notre Dame, who himself played in the Detroit Catholic League. “Personally, for me, I love the teaching part. A kid came up to me and said, ‘How do I bunt?’ in the first practice. I didn’t get mad; I actually liked it. I like teaching baseball.”
Now, Rice has no trouble filling the roster. This season’s tryout featured 36 players, and for the second consecutive season, Mooney has been able to field a junior varsity team.
“I’m so proud of it,” Rice said. “I moved them into the upper division in the JV this year. We have a good coach there that kind of treats it as a developmental, minor league program. It’s just about getting better. That way, they’re ready when they come up.
“It’s a quote-unquote program now. Coach (Michael) Hunt runs his practices the same way I run mine. When they come up to my team, it’s the exact same thing.”
As the program has grown, so has the depth of talent on the roster. Rice said this year’s team is the deepest he’s had.
“I have about eight pitchers now on this team,” he said. “We’re fully loaded up as far as position players go. We’re a more complete team from top to bottom, including the bench. We have, in my opinion, four top-notch starting pitchers, not including relievers.”
Gill struck out 22 batters over his first two starts of the season and carried a no-hitter through 6 2/3 innings of the opener against Lutheran Northwest. Nathan Super no-hit Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes on Mooney’s second day of action, and Blake Lutzky struck out six over 2 1/3 innings in his first appearance.
The Cardinals have also shown off their depth in the lineup, with everyone from leadoff hitter DiGiuseppe – who is 5-for-5 at the plate to start the year – to junior Nick Garcia – a home run from the nine hole – getting in on the act. Comito has a pair of hits in each of the Cardinals’ past two games, while sophomore Trent Rice (six hits), junior Tom Rice (five RBIs) and sophomore Ryan Trombley (five RBI) also have had strong starts to the year.
“We have a super strong team of athletic guys this year,” DiGiuseppe said. “We have the most athletes on this team than all the other teams I’ve been on at Mooney. Everybody knows their role, and it’s cool to have those guys on the bench we know can come in and do their job.”
Gill added that the depth of the team gives the players confidence each time they step onto the field.
“I think confidence is key,” Gill said. “If you’re confident, you can almost beat anyone.”
Mike Rice said the growth of the program is all about the players on the field. Gill, though, said his coach should be taking a lot more of the credit.
“He’s a great coach,’ Gill said. “His attention to detail is very, very good. It helps us all get better. He’ll see a little thing that’s wrong and corrects it, something that most people wouldn’t notice. He sees the really fine details that make you a great player.”
The recent success of the program has also caused a growth in confidence among the players. The 2019 Regional title was the second in school history, and their Super Regional defeat came against eventual Division 4 champion Petersburg Summerfield, which gave the Cardinals an up-close and personal look at what an MHSAA championship team looks like.
“They looked like a college team,” Gill said. “They looked like a (Division II) college team.”
The success also makes the Cardinals believe that their lofty ranking is justified, and rather than ignoring it, they’re embracing it.
“It’s different, but we love it,” Rice said. “Our kids have a good confidence, but not an arrogance. I want the target. I want these kids to understand that all of us worked our butts off to get here. People say rankings don’t mean anything, but for me, I think they do. I think it’s helped build a little bit of confidence. The expectations are definitely different. It feels different, and I think it’s helped the boys say that, ‘Hey, we’re not this small school in Marine City that nobody knows.’”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Marine City Cardinal Mooney pitcher Tommy Gill makes his move toward the plate during a game this spring. (Middle) Anthony DiGiuseppe gets his lead off second base during a 2019 game. (Below) The 2019 team celebrates its Regional championship. (Photos courtesy of the Cardinal Mooney baseball program.)
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Centreville Aiming to Take Next Step
By
Wes Morgan
Special for MHSAA.com
April 12, 2016
The sleepy village of Centreville was even quieter last June 13 when seemingly every resident trekked to East Lansing to watch the Bulldogs’ varsity baseball team take on Muskegon Catholic Central in the MHSAA Division 4 championship game.
“When we were at Michigan State last year, what’s funny is that, we’re in a small town, but the whole small town was at Michigan State,” Centreville coach Mike Webster said. “If you were in Centreville that day, the bank could have been robbed; the grocery store could have been robbed. We had the directors of the MHSAA come up to us and tell us we had the biggest crowd out of anybody — Division 1, 2, 3 or 4 schools.
“That lets you know that this town was waiting for something like that. The support is there and my phone has been off the hook since that day last year. I know we’ll have that fan support and school support. It makes it that much more fun.”
It was a historic run for the Bulldogs last spring, one that included a 29-2 record, a Berrien-Cass-St. Joseph East championship, the program’s first Regional crown and a spot in the penultimate game. The Bulldogs fell to MCC by a score of 10-8 to finish as Division 4 runner-up.
Now there’s only one goal: Win it all.
In order to meet that expectation, the preseason No. 2-ranked team in D4 will have to rely heavily on the right arm of senior pitcher Michael Kool, who had a remarkable 0.97 ERA in 2015. The recent Calvin College commit said, “I just got to trust my stuff like I did last year.”
That’s even easier to do with the gloves supporting him.
“I have to trust my defense behind me,” he added. “I wouldn’t have a below 1.00 ERA without the defensive players behind me.”
Helping Kool pick up the slack on the mound this season will be junior Coletin Gascho, who posted a very impressive 1.57 ERA as the team’s third pitcher in 2015. Senior Jake Milliman will provide depth on the mound for the Bulldogs, as will sophomore Andrew Stevens.
The Bulldogs’ offense, which posted a .312 team batting average and a .433 on-base percentage in 2015, brings back six of its top seven hitters from a year ago. Seniors Jalen Brown and Nick Kelley are among those returners looking to improve upon an offense that didn’t produce great power numbers last year but was still effective from top to bottom.
Brown, who went on a tear during the playoffs, finished 2015 with a .430 batting average.
Kelley, a rare strikeout victim in 2015, posted an eye-opening .560 on-base percentage during the regular season to go along with a strong .396 batting average. Kool also will look to provide some offense in 2016 just as he did in 2015, when he led the team in home runs (two).
“I think we’re all hungry to get back to the state championship and finish the job this time,” Kool said.
Centreville returns almost all of its key defenders to this year’s roster. Kelley, who along with Kool will make up one of the most successful and experienced batteries around the state, will anchor the defense from behind the plate.
Sophomore centerfielder Nick Webber is a major asset with a year of experience under his belt. Junior shortstop Brady Reynolds is just as invaluable.
“He’s (Reynolds) a very energetic kid, a very quick kid, and he’s a natural baseball player,” Brown said in describing why his teammate was the best defender on the Bulldogs’ roster.
This veteran group knows, however, this spring will be quite different being chased instead of being the pursuant.
“We have always had a very competitive conference,” Webster said. “With the returning players we will be having, we expect teams to not overlook us.”
“All last season, our little quote on the team was play every game like it’s a District championship game,” Kelley explained. “This year it’s going to be play every game like it’s a state title game.”
Wes Morgan has reported for the Kalamazoo Gazette, ESPN and ESPNChicago.com, 247Sports and Blue & Gold Illustrated over the last 12 years and is the publisher of JoeInsider.com. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph and Branch counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Centreville's baseball team celebrates last season's Division 4 Semifinal win at Michigan State University. (Middle) Michael Kool unloads a pitch on the way to earning the 2-1 victory over Rudyard.