Cowboys hoping to ride into Battle Creek
May 18, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
At least once a week, former longtime Detroit Western International baseball coach Ziggy Gonzalez stops in to Cowboys practice to offer a taste of the program’s history.
“Big Dad” coached the 1972 team that fell 3-1 in the Class A Final and the 1973 team that advanced to the Semis. Among his former players was the late Todd Cruz, who earned a World Series ring as part of the 1983 Baltimore Orioles.
“I tell these guys, we don’t know where we’re going if we don’t know where we’ve been,” current coach Juan Carlos Sanchez said.
Detroit Western is attempting to go somewhere a Detroit Public School league team hasn’t been in a while – and hoping to accomplish a feat no PSL school has attained before.
The Cowboys, recipients of this week’s Second Half team High 5, are 22-4 heading into this afternoon’s PSL Semifinal matchup against Detroit Cass Tech. Western hasn’t lost a league game in at least five seasons – but took that success to the next level last season when it came within an out of advancing to the MHSAA Division 1 Semifinals at Battle Creek’s Bailey Park.
Western led Temperance Bedford 2-0 in their Quarterfinal before falling 3-2 and ending the season 18-13 overall. Remembering that day, the Cowboys break huddles now with “3-2, Finish!”
“It’s been their focus and drive all year,” Sanchez said. “They’ve been determined to get back, and once I explained the magnitude of making history like that (as potentially the first champion from the PSL) … that’s something they want to be a part of.”
And the Cowboys have a number of reasons to anticipate this final month of the season.
Of 16 players, 14 were on the team during last season’s run. They are led by a strong core which will be back in 2013 as well – juniors Hector Gutierrez Jr. and Jose Ramon Morales, and sophomore Luis Chapa, the team’s top three pitchers and 2-3-4 hitters in the lineup. Gutierrez and Morales man the middle of the infield for the second straight season.
Their only losses this season were to No. 10 Macomb Dakota during spring break and then to top-ranked Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice. Sanchez purposely has tried to fill the schedule with strong competition, and the Cowboys should get a look at more top teams at Saturday’s Warren Mott Invitational.
They put in the work. Sanchez said he got texts all offseason from players asking for the key to the school’s batting cage. Seniors and juniors have led conditioning on off-days.
And they’ve got tradition and support. While the state rankings are filled with teams from suburbs and small towns, those from the state’s biggest cities frequently struggle. But southwest Detroit is a baseball community. There’s a thriving men’s league, and Sanchez – who grew up there, attended Detroit Catholic Central and played baseball at the University of Detroit – said it’s common to find pick-up games on Saturdays and Sundays.
"(Baseball) is something bred in us,” he said. “It’s passed down from generations, not just from dads but moms as well. It gets fed to them every day.”
Before last season, the Cowboys had come close to breaking through to the season’s final week during Sanchez' decade coaching in the program – and last season’s run sent the players’ confidence soaring.
Next month, they hope to take another championship step.
“We set the expectations high early,” he said. “We’re not just content to be a good city team. We want to win statewide.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Sophomore Tratez Henton stands in against a Detroit Martin Luther King pitcher this season. (Middle) Coaches speak to the team after its win over King. (Photo courtesy of the Detroit Public School League.)
Homer Ends Spring with Title Celebration
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
June 15, 2019
EAST LANSING – After a postseason full of winning, the players on the Homer baseball team have become dogpile veterans.
So after the Trojans defeated Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett 4-0 on Saturday in the MHSAA Division 3 Final, a small game of “I’m not going to be on the bottom” broke out before the traditional baseball celebration commenced.
“The dogpiles get a little more intense, a little more vicious the more you keep winning,” Homer coach Scott Salow said. “Today, I’ll watch the video later, but I think it was pretty good. I think they’ve gotten smart after the last five or six dogpiles; they all kind of look around and wait. I’m the last one out of the dugout, so I’m not going in.”
Homer (33-3) scored four runs in the first inning at McLane Stadium and rode the arm of senior pitcher Zach Butters to its first Finals title since 2006, and third overall.
“We’ve been working to get here for a long time, this group of guys,” Butters said. “It’s overwhelming to finally get here and win this with my guys. It means a lot. I mean, look at all these people out here coming out to support us. We’re a small town, and it’s just a great feeling. It means the world.”
Butters, who also picked up the win in the Semifinal in a relief appearance, kept a potent Liggett off balance for the 6 1/3 innings he was on the mound. He scattered five hits and two walks while striking out six.
“We had a gameplan going into it to stay away,” Butters said. “We saw yesterday where they like to pull, they like to turn over on pitches, so we were just trying to stay away as much as we could and execute the gameplan. My offspeed was pretty good today, and I just had a great defense making plays behind me all day. I couldn’t ask for a better group of guys to go out and battle with.”
Liggett (24-10) knew coming in that would be Butters’ gameplan, but was out-executed.
“He threw his slider/curveball out of the zone, and we just kept swinging at it,” Liggett coach Dan Cimini said. “The gameplan was to not swing at that. If you look back, a lot of 2-1 sliders out of the zone we were swinging at. That’s 3-1, that changes everything. Give him credit for throwing good pitches, but our guys need to lay off that kind of stuff.”
Butters got some help from his defense, which didn’t commit an error and also got him out of the one jam he found himself in all day. With one out and runners on first and second in the sixth inning, Liggett senior Alec Azar hit what looked to be a base hit into left field. But junior leftfielder Dylan Warner made a diving catch and jumped up to double up the runner at second.
“It could have been a better catch, but I got a late read on it,” Warner said. “Then when I got up, I saw the kid halfway, I just threw it and it was right on the money.”
Butters enjoyed his view of the play from the mound.
“I knew it was going to be a close one – Dylan was out there, and he was running,” Butters said. “I was like, ‘Oh boy.’ Then he lays out like Superman, and he comes up with it. It was a great play.”
T.J. VanderKuyl closed out the game, getting the final two outs for the Trojans after Butters reached his pitch limit two batters into the seventh inning. VanderKuyl kept it relatively drama free, and the final out was a roller to Butters at short.
All of Homer’s offense, meanwhile, came in the first inning, highlighted by a two-run double from Kyle Compton and a two-run single from Wilson. The Trojans threatened again in the second, putting runners at the corners with two outs, but Cimini went to the bullpen and brought in senior Billy Kopicki, who ended the threat.
Kopicki was strong in relief, allowing just one hit and two walks while striking out two in 4 1/3 innings. Kopicki is part of a strong senior class that was part of three Final Four runs and helped the Knights win a title in 2016.
“They’ve been great,” Cimini said. “Alec Azar and Billy Kopicki and Logan King are going on to play college baseball. Obviously, Mickey Walkowiak was phenomenal this year at first base, and had great leadership. Kellen Banaszewski is going to try and walk-on at Grand Valley – he made one error all year in the infield. They’re going to be sorely missed, but they paved the way for these younger guys, and these guys know how to act. They were leaders. I’m looking forward to the new class, but I’m going to miss the old class.”
Drew Zelenak led Liggett with two hits, while Patrick Illitch had a double. Wilson led Homer with a pair of hits.
PHOTOS: (Top) Homer's Zach Butters (3) and Damaso LeBron enjoy a moment during the Division 3 championship game. (Middle) Dylan Warner closes in on a diving catch for the Trojans.