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First-Time Title Winner Guaranteed in D4
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
June 16, 2017
EAST LANSING – Coach Bryan Scheurer figured his Portland St. Patrick team couldn’t play much worse.
The Shamrocks committed four errors over the first four innings of their Division 4 Semifinal and trailed Unionville-Sebewaing 8-4.
“Our motto is to throw strikes early,” he said. “We want to throw strikes and take the outs they give us.”
That wasn’t working. In addition to the errors, St. Patrick issued three walks.
“We weren’t playing well,” Scheurer said. “Another one of our mottos is, losing is not acceptable. We’re going to chip away, grind away.
“We didn’t make it easy.”
The Shamrocks scored four runs in the fifth inning to tie the game and pushed across four more in the seventh to defeat USA, 12-8, on Friday at Michigan State’s McLane Stadium.
St. Patrick (28-0-1), a 10-3 loser to Sterling Heights Parkway Christian in the Final last season, will attempt to win the program’s first title when it plays Hudson (27-16) at 5 p.m. Saturday.
Hudson, which had never won a Regional title until this season, trailed Gaylord St. Mary, 2-1, after four innings and then scored two in the fifth and added three in the sixth to take a 6-2 lead on the way to achieving another program first.
St. Patrick had two triples in the fifth inning of its win. Freshman Devin Fedewa’s two-run triple was the key hit.
Graham Smith then started the seventh with a walk, and the bases were loaded with one out after an error and a hit batsman. Dan Mackowiak batted in what proved to be the winning run with a sacrifice fly to center. Nathan Lehnert and Scheurer’s nephew, Brandon Scheurer, had RBI singles, and another run scored on a well-executed double steal.
St. Patrick trailed Bay City All Saints 3-0 and 6-4 in a Regional Final before coming back to win, 7-6. Brandon Scheuer said his team has come back a number of times this season, so the fact the Shamrocks were trailing again didn’t faze them.
“We’ve seen games like that before,” he said. “We try not to hit doubles and home runs. We want to hit singles. We play small ball. We’re good at it. Apparently, they are, too.”
USA (30-8-1) batted around in the third inning and scored four runs to take a 7-3 lead. Scheurer came on in relief in that inning, and though he gave up three of the four runs, he settled down and allowed just two hits and no runs over the final three innings to receive credit for the victory.
Scheurer had four hits, and four of his teammates had two including Brendan Schrauben, Lehnert and Fedewa, all of whom had two RBI.
St. Patrick had 15 hits to nine for USA. Cooper Kauffold had three hits and three RBI for the Patriots.
“That was a heck of a game when you think about all of the back-and-forth play,” USA coach Tyler Bader said. “I told our players you’ve got to use this as a springboard. Not having experience here can add up.”
USA was playing to reach an MHSAA Final for the first time.
Hudson 6, Gaylord St. Mary 4
Jesse Hesistan went the first six innings for Hudson before filling the bases with no outs in the seventh. Coach Jeremy Beal brought in Garrett Gamble from third base and switched Hesistan to third.
The move worked. Drew Koenig hit a grounder to Hesistan, who stepped on the bag and threw to first to complete the double play. Though a run scored, Hudson got what it wanted.
“I was nervous,” Gamble said. “Pitching in relief is never easy. You just have to get it done. You prep for this.”
Brady Hunter singled in St. Mary’s fourth run, but Gamble got the last out on a fly out to center.
“(Hesistan) had enough pitches left to finish,” Beal said. “He was staring at getting us to the Final. That double play was just like we drew it up.”
Hudson’s three runs in the sixth inning proved valuable. Black Borck singled home the fourth run and Gamble, who went 4-4 with four RBI, followed with a two-out, two-run triple.
“We needed to score some runs,” St. Mary coach Matt Nowicki said. “When you get in a hole like that, it’s tough. It would have been nice to take that next step.”
Nick Torsky went the distance for St. Mary (29-8), and Joseph Moeggenberg went 3-3 at the plate.
“We don’t have experience in games like these,” Beal said. “But our athletic department has had success. Wrestling for one. We coach kids in the fall, and it carries over to the winter. We coach kids in the winter and it carries over to the spring.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Portland St. Patrick second baseman Dan Mackowiak throws to first during Friday’s Division 4 Semifinal. (Middle) Hudson puts a tag on Gaylord St. Mary’s Nick Torsky.
![Brighton baseball](/sites/default/files/2022-07/220713_Christner_2H.jpg)
Brighton Baseball, Community Rally as Coach Comes Back Strong from Health Scare
By
Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com
July 13, 2022
At first, Charlie Christner thought it was a case of heartburn.
It was Jan. 12. He had taught social studies at Scranton Middle School for five hours and now was beginning his prep hour by preparing for his other job as baseball coach at Brighton High School.
“I was actually … in my last hour (of) the day, and just started having heartburn,” he said.
So he made a quick trip to a nearby store to get an over-the-counter heartburn remedy.
“I wanted something to help me before I went to (offseason) hitting,” he recalled.
But the feeling didn’t go away, and about 4 p.m. Christner told his coaches he wasn’t feeling well and was going home.
He didn’t get there.
“I made it about a mile down the road and had to pull over and just started throwing up,” he said. “(I) felt better and started back down the road and stopped, (and) just started throwing up again, and I said ‘I’ve got to get to the hospital.’”
He called his wife, Jackie, who was at home working, and she rushed to the hospital.
Once he was admitted, Christner was diagnosed with pancreatitis.
Waiting out a serious situation
The pancreas is a gland located under the stomach which secretes hormones, including insulin, to aid in digestion.
In Charlie’s case, gallstones had blocked the ducts connecting his pancreas to his small intestine. This, in turn, was leading to part of the tissue in his pancreas beginning to die.
Over the next several weeks, the Christners made several trips to the hospital while he dealt with pain and a gradual buildup of fluid due to a cyst that had formed around the inflammation in his pancreas. The cyst made him feel full all of the time and made it difficult to eat or drink.
The pain medication affected him, too.
“It messed up his thought process a little,” Jackie said. “Some days he didn't know what day it was or, you know, he doesn't remember those days.”
Although the diagnosis was fairly swift — the Christners knew from the beginning what was wrong and what needed to be done — surgery was delayed for nearly two months to let the inflammation in his pancreas go down.
But it was still a serious situation.
“It’s a most sobering experience to have a surgeon come out and tell you your son is very sick and it’s a very serious situation and has a 70 percent chance of survival,” said Dan Christner, who coaches with his son after a long career as a basketball coach at Brighton. “I’ve seen enough missed free throws to know that if you make 70 percent of your free throws, that means 30 percent aren’t going in. It gives you pause, and (you) say let’s make sure we’re a part of that 70 percent.”
The delay was to help increase those odds.
“They didn't want to do surgery (right away) because of all the inflammation and everything that's going on inside your body,“ Charlie said. “If you have to do it soon, then you end up being in a position where the odds of surviving are less if we have to do emergency surgery. So they delayed it.”
Charlie and Jackie made several trips to and from the hospital during the six weeks after the initial diagnosis.
When he felt up to it, Charlie was working on lesson plans along with administrative tasks while his coaches ran offseason workouts.
“He really wanted to make sure things were coordinated,” Jackie said. “And you know, that's Charlie to a T. He wants to make sure that everything runs smoothly and in that, you know, he's informed of any decisions or changes or things that are happening with the team.”
A veteran coaching staff, led by former Pinckney baseball coach Matt Evans, stepped into the breach.
“I think the big thing on our part was making sure that it was business as usual,” Evans said. “We weren’t going to let Charlie not being there through the winter be an excuse for why we performed or didn’t perform. He’s been a stable force and head of the program for a number of years now. We knew what we needed to do, and so it was about executing a plan that's pretty familiar to us.”
Christner went to a few offseason workouts, watching from a chair.
“(Jackie) would drive me up to hitting and I'd sit in there and watch the guys for as long as I could, 30 minutes or an hour, just to give me something to do," Charlie said. “Otherwise it was, you know, a lot of daytime TV and naps. I did do some stuff with baseball during that time, even if it was just to go watch hitting for an hour and talk to the coaches on how kids are doing. ... It gave me definitely something to do and something to look forward to.”
In the meantime, the Christners were flooded with cards, texts and phone calls of support, prompting Jackie to post regular updates on her Facebook page to lighten that load.
Their families were supportive, as was the community.
“Everybody was so gracious and heartwarming and opened their arms to us and said, ‘anything you need,’” Jackie said. “There's nothing that we really needed that the community could help us with too much because we were just stuck in a hospital, just kind of sitting there waiting for medicines, waiting for diagnosis, waiting for the doctor to progress the treatment, etc. And that was kind of what we needed.”
“I’m proud of the way that everybody came together and did what had to be done, and how excited people were to see him," Evans said. “That speaks to the time that Charlie’s put into this program over the last however many years as a coach, Any time you’re a coach, you look for those moments you can point to as having a positive impact on kids and the baseball community and all those things, and I would say the willingness of everyone to pitch in is a testament to how much he’s appreciated as part of the Brighton baseball community.”
On the way back
Surgery was March 3. Christner’s gallbladder was removed, along with the dead tissue on his pancreas. A pair of cysts were drained, and he went home a few days later.
Christner, always slender in physique, had lost 40 pounds – 10 of which liquid that had been building up in the cysts.
But, albeit from a chair, he was at tryouts March 15.
His voice was weak at first, but he made his presence known.
“When he was back at tryouts, those first couple times, he would cut loose and let out a yell,” Evans said. “And it was ‘OK, Charlie’s back, and he’s in it,’ and that made everyone feel good. Same old Charlie. He’s locked in. Same old competitor.”
A frustrated competitor, at one point, irritated because fungos weren’t being hit by his coaches in the manner he prefers. But he coached from third base, albeit from his normal spot a step or two from the dugout.
He progressed from liquids to solid food (his first solid food was pizza), and returned to the classroom April 12, three months to the day his medical odyssey began.
After an 8-8 start, the Bulldogs won District and Regional titles before falling in a Division 1 Quarterfinal.
The healing continues, but things are back on schedule for Christner, who turned 40 on Saturday.
He’s not outwardly emotional. He appreciates the love and support he and his family have received, but also wishes he could have accomplished more for his team during the time he was critically ill.
Jackie Christner is not as reserved.
“I just thank God every day that he is healthy,” said Jackie, who married Charlie in 2019. “And yes, our bond has strengthened. I think everything for us just knowing that we need each other and we need people in our lives as everybody does. But especially to know that we had each other and he had me. He often said, ‘I don't know what I would do if you weren't here. I don't know what I would do. If I hadn't met you, this would be 10 times harder to go through if you weren't here.’"
PHOTOS (Top) Brighton varsity baseball coach Charlie Christner, fifth from right, addresses his team. (Middle) Charlie and wife Jackie Christner enjoy a moment on the lakeshore. (Photos courtesy of Jackie Christner.)