Edison, Buchanan Clutch When It Counts Most to Earn Saturday Return
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
June 17, 2022
Even Detroit Edison coach Mark Brown couldn’t really believe it afterwards.
If you would have told Brown before a Division 3 Semifinal against Pewamo-Westphalia that his team would have gotten four hits, committed three errors and his four seniors would’ve gone 0-for-12 with seven strikeouts, he wouldn’t have thought they would be coming back to McLane Stadium on Saturday.
“I would not have believed that,” Brown said. “Especially against a good team like Pewamo-Westphalia. I would not have thought that.”
But somehow, some way, Edison got it done, advancing to its first championship game with a 3-2 win over the Pirates.
The Pioneers (25-12) prevailed through a combination of clutch pitching, clutch hitting and taking advantage of P-W miscues.
Sophomore starter Marwynn Matthews grinded through six innings of work, allowing just two runs and pitching out of jams.
Pewamo-Westphalia loaded the bases in the third inning, but Matthews got out of it with a strikeout. He also stranded a runner at third base in the fourth inning and another at second base in the fifth inning before pitching a 1-2-3 sixth.
“I feel it was a great choice to put me on the mound,” Matthews said. “I felt like nobody could do it better than me. I was trying to work on the outside corners, inside, change-ups low in the dirt and curve balls. Just a mixture of things.”
At 99 pitches to start the top of the seventh, Matthews was pulled in favor of senior Greg Pace, who got the first two outs before a hit batter, wild pitch and walk put runners at first and third.
But Pace induced a weak groundout to first to end the game.
“I’m just trying to throw strikes at that point,” Pace said. “It was a relief. I knew I could trust anybody the ball was hit at.”
Matthews also had two hits to lead the limited offensive production for Edison.
Senior Tanner Wirth and junior Trent Channell each had two hits to lead Pewamo-Westphalia (23-11-2), which also committed three critical errors and a couple of baserunning mistakes that halted rallies.
“Sometimes the results don’t necessarily match the results,” Pewamo-Westphalia head coach Curt Nurenberg said. “But you keep on pushing on and moving on. I thought they did a great job.”
Edison opened the scoring in the bottom of the second inning with two runs. After Matthews reached on an infield single, he stole second and took third when the throw went into centerfield. Matthews then scored on an infield error.
Following a wild pitch that put another runner in scoring position, Edison took a 2-0 lead on an RBI single with two outs by sophomore Deshaun Williams.
The Pirates cut Edison’s lead to 2-1 in the fourth inning on an RBI single by Channell, but Matthews stranded the potential tying run on third base.
Edison then got the run back in its half of the fourth on an RBI single up the middle by sophomore Kole Waterman, again with two outs.
After putting runners on second and first with one out in the fifth inning, Pewamo-Westphalia made it 3-2 on a fielder’s choice groundout when a throw to first to complete a double play got by the Edison first baseman.
Buchanan 6, Standish-Sterling 1 (8 innings)
Up until Buchanan senior Matt Hoover stepped to the plate in the top of the eighth inning, it had been a pile of frustration for the Bucks in the second Division 3 Semifinal.
Buchanan had gone 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position when Hoover took his turn with a runner on second base and one out in a 1-1 game.
“All week, I was hitting high curve balls off the machine over and over again, just seeing the spin at the top of the zone, not trying to do too much and put it in right-center” Hoover said. “I did that all week, and finally got my one in the right spot.”
Indeed, just as he did in batting practice, Hoover laced an RBI single to right-center to score junior teammate Cade Preissing and give Buchanan a 2-1 lead.
As it turned out, it also burst a dam for the Bucks, who went on to score five runs total in the inning and earn a return trip to McLane.
The win also earned some redemption for Buchanan (28-4), which was shut out in a Semifinal last year by Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett.
“Our kids have been on a quest from Day 1,” Buchanan coach Jim Brawley said. “They’ve only wanted to get back here. Last weekend, we didn’t even care about the Regional trophy. Their goal was to get to the championship game.”
Following Hoover’s hit, senior Macoy West sent a two-run triple to center and sophomore Nick Finn added an RBI single to give Buchanan a 5-1 lead. A sixth run scored on a wild pitch.
With Hoover, the team’s ace, at 25 pitches after coming on to relieve starter Drew Glavin in the sixth inning, Buchanan elected to re-insert Glavin in the eighth to finish the game and preserve Hoover for the Final.
The matchup was a pitchers’ duel between Standish-Sterling senior Chase Raymond and Glavin for the first five innings, with neither allowing a run.
Raymond pitched a scoreless sixth, and then Standish-Sterling broke the tie in its half of the inning.
With one out, Raymond dumped a blooper over the second baseman’s head to score senior teammate Cole Prout and give Standish-Sterling a 1-0 lead.
Buchanan answered in the top of the seventh, putting runners on second and third with nobody out after a single by senior Murphy Wegner and a double by West. The Bucks tied the game at 1-1 when Wegner was safe at home on a fielder’s choice groundout.
However, it could’ve been a lot worse for Standish-Sterling.
With runners again on second and third and nobody out, Raymond got out of the jam via a popup, fielder’s choice groundout and a strikeout to keep the game tied.
PHOTOS (Top) Detroit Edison’s Kole Waterman powers into a pitch during his team’s Division 3 Semifinal win. (Middle) Buchanan celebrates its extra-inning victory in Friday’s final game.
Baseball Remains Front of Tuttle's Mind, Close to Retired Coach's Heart
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
June 29, 2023
BLISSFIELD – Larry Tuttle jogged out of Tuttle Dugout onto the artificial turf at Adrian College and took his spot in the third base coach’s box, looked in at the batter as he approached the plate and clapped his hands.
It’s like he never left.
For more than 50 years, Tuttle occupied the third base coach’s box for the Blissfield Royals. He is the winningest high school baseball coach in Michigan history and one of the winningest prep baseball coaches in America. It’s been two years since Tuttle last coached the Royals, but when the Lenawee County All-Star Game came around this year, and Onsted coach Matthew Randall was named a head coach of one of the teams, one of his first calls was to Tuttle.
“To see him coach third base again for two innings of that all-star game was nothing short of amazing,” Randall said. “I love that man and everything he has taught me.”
Tuttle and Randall faced off about 40 times over the years.
“There’s a lot of respect between us,” Tuttle said. “I was happy to do it.”
Tuttle, 79, is a Morenci native who played baseball and graduated from Adrian College, coached for one year at Temperance Bedford and five decades at Blissfield. He spends a little more than half of the year in Florida these days in a house he owns in The Villages, a retirement community about an hour north of Orlando.
This past spring, Blissfield took a spring baseball trip to Florida and Tuttle was able to come out to the field and watch a few practices.
“That’s the best time,” he said. “I always enjoyed those first practices of each season. People will ask me, ‘But what about the cold? It’s always so cold in Michigan that first week.’ The first 10 days or two weeks or so inside, that’s where we formed our whole season, working on the fundaments and the strategy, getting the kids mentally ready for the season. That was a fun part of coaching.”
He returns home to Michigan each summer to spend time with his kids and grandchildren, including a freshman-aged granddaughter who is showing good things in softball. His roots are in southeast Michigan, and he has every intention of keeping it that way.
Tuttle’s career at Blissfield was nothing short of remarkable.
He coached Blissfield for 54 seasons. It would have been 55, but the 2020 season was canceled due to COVID. The Royals won 1,332 games during his career. They won 33 District titles, 23 Regional championships and seven Finals crowns. Blissfield also won 40 league titles, including in his final season of 2021. His No. 18 jersey was retired by the school district.
In 2015, Tuttle was an easy inaugural choice for the Michigan Baseball Hall of Fame.
This summer, Tuttle returned to Michigan in time to see Blissfield play a few regular-season games and was there when his beloved Royals played in the Division 3 District tournament. He wore his familiar Royals gear. When the Lenawee County All-Star game was played, Tuttle was in his full Blissfield uniform. It still fits perfectly.
“I still enjoy the game,” Tuttle said. “It’s my energy level that just isn’t what it used to be. That’s why I stepped down. I still love the strategy of the game.”
When he’s watching a game, he still goes through every play in his mind and what he would do if he was calling the shots.
“You’re always coaching even though you might a spectator,” he said. “It may not be the right way, but it’s my way. That’s baseball. I love thinking about what to do on this count or that count, to take a pitch or not.
“I see a lot of coaches these days who had played in college. Young coaches coach the college way, but you are dealing with high school kids who may not have a real firm understanding of the game itself. You have to teach high school baseball to college kids. You don’t teach college or pro ball to high school kids.”
Tuttle, who has battled some health issues the last couple of years, misses being in his role as coach.
“I miss the players and the relationships I had with umpires and the other coaches,” he said. “It’s hard to replace that.”
Tuttle is an icon in Lenawee County. When he goes to a game, people gather around him to talk. He still follows the area teams and has a relationship with several coaches and ex-players.
Tuttle enjoyed monumental success at Blissfield. The Royals’ last sub-.500 season was in 1971.
“I know that because I have the records,” Tuttle said. “The closest we came was we were 8-8 one year in the 1980s.”
Tuttle has been a stickler for stats his entire career. Some coaches have a hard time remembering how their team did two years ago. Tuttle knows. He kept intricate stats on every team he’s coached at Blissfield and to this day has them organized only a few steps away from his kitchen table at his home in Blissfield – which is just across the street from the high school and a long home run away from the baseball field that is named in his honor.
“I have a file cabinet full of files from each season and I have the scorebook from every year I coached at Blissfield, starting in 1968,” Tuttle said. “Stats were always important to me, not the wins, but the stats. Baseball stats tell you so much about the game.”
Since stepping aside, Tuttle has had time to reflect on his career.
“I would have never believed I would have coached that long,” Tuttle said. “Then, I sit back and think, ‘That was a lot of wins, wasn’t it?’ I don’t mean that in a bragging way. I think more about it when I go to a game.”
Randall recently announced his retirement from Onsted after 13 years as head coach. Onsted is in the same conference as Blissfield, the Lenawee County Athletic Association, so he had a close-up view of Tuttle in action.
He now has a memory of the last game he coached at the All-Star Game at Adrian College.
“I credit a lot of my coaching philosophy to this day to him,” Randall said. “Our relationship has really grown over the years. I wanted Coach Tuttle to be with me in my final game. That’s why I asked him.”
PHOTOS (Top) Retired Blissfield baseball coach Larry Tuttle coaches third base during the June 26 Lenawee County All-Star Game. (Middle) Tuttle’s jersey is retired during a 2021 ceremony. (Photos by Doug Donnelly.)