GRCC, St Mary's Soak in D2 Success

June 13, 2019

By Matt Schoch
Special for Second Half

EAST LANSING – Grand Rapids Catholic Central's Brenden Leonard said Thursday that teammate Joe Collins had ice water in his veins.

Funny, because while he said that, Leonard had ice and freezing cold water all over his body.

The ninth-hitting senior, who came into the night with three RBI on the season, was a catalyst for his team’s 3-2 victory against Trenton in the Division 2 Semifinal at Michigan State’s McLane Baseball Stadium.

Leonard reached base three times, playing a hand in all three runs, and Collins shut the door, striking out the side in the seventh to preserve the win.

“That kid (Collins) is made for those moments, ice in his veins, cool as a cucumber,” Leonard said, shortly after getting the Gatorade water bath from his teammates while doing post-game media interviews. “He’s built for those moments – level-headed and he’s always making the plays.”

Leonard could’ve been referring to himself after his RBI single in the second inning opened Catholic Central's scoring, and pinch-runners off his hard-earned walks provided the other runs.

“Everyone on this team is just a gamer,” Collins said. “When we need a big hit, a big play – this whole tournament, whoever has been up at the plate, they’ve made the play for us.

“That’s kind of defined our tournament, in my opinion. Just big plays when we need them from everyone.”

Ben Joppich earned the win, allowing two runs over six innings and improving to 9-1 in his senior season. 

Joppich gave way to Collins for the seventh, where the reliever shut the door, setting down one Trenton batter looking and the other two swinging.

“I had to settle myself down during warmups a little bit, but once I threw that first pitch, it was just kind of a normal game, just got settled in,” Collins said. “We needed three outs and then we’re going to the state championship. That got me settled down.”

Coach Tim MacKinnon and the Cougars (27-10) will play Orchard Lake St. Mary’s at 11:30 a.m. Saturday for what would be the program’s second Finals championship and first since 1985.

In the loss, Trenton junior right-hander Kyle Richey allowed two earned runs in six-plus innings, striking out six. 

Gabe Cavazos opened the scoring for Trenton (32-10) with an RBI single in the first inning.

Catholic Central took the lead on a pair of two-out RBI singles, first by Leonard in the second inning to tie, and then by junior Kyle Tepper in the fifth for the lead.

Trenton tied it on a schoolyard play in the bottom of the fifth. A runner stole second, drawing a throw from the Catholic Central catcher. After Trenton's Brenden Donovan broke for home, the throw to the plate was high, and the junior scored his second run of the night.

Catholic Central responded in the top of the seventh, as another throwing miscue led to the winning run.

Myles Beale singled pinch-runner Matt Moore to second after Leonard’s walk, and Trenton coach Todd Szalka went to sophomore Micah Ottenbreit to relieve Richey.

Ottenbreit struck out the first batter he faced, and then Luke Passinault’s grounder to second base looked like a potential inning-ending double-play ball.

However, an errant throw after the force out at second allowed Moore to score.

Collins, who also had a hit, took it from there.

“It’s something that Catholic Central is not really used to – we’re mostly a football school, but we’re a baseball school too,” Leonard said. 

“We can play a little ball. So I guess we’ll play a little ball Saturday.”

Click for the full box score.

Orchard Lake St. Mary’s 10, Muskegon Oakridge 0 (6 inn.)

Junior left-hander Logan Wood threw a complete-game, two-hit shutout to earn the win.

Wood struck out 10 batters and walked two, and closed his pitching season with a 10-0 record.

“Just one more,” Wood said. “We had a great game. The team hit the ball, I pitched well, a great game overall. I was feeling pretty good right from the start coming out of the bullpen.”

OLSM (33-9-2) stayed unbeaten over its last 28 games, a stretch that includes two ties.

Wood struck out five batters in the first two innings, and coach Matt Petry said his ace needed just 69 pitches in six innings.

“Logan did an excellent job,” Petry said. “For his standards, he struggled last time against St. Clair, but kept us in the game. But today, I think he almost took it personal about his last outing.

“He wanted to be great today, and he was.”

The Eaglets will be going for their fourth title Saturday and kept Oakridge at bay, as Eagles coach Brandon Barry was going for career win No. 500 and the school’s first Final appearance.

Senior pitcher Koleman Wall kept Oakridge (26-8) in the game early, stranding four runners in the first two innings, and allowing just one run through three.

But OLSM sophomore Alex Mooney broke the game open with a two-out, two-run double to the wall in the fourth inning to make it 4-0. He had three hits and three RBI.

“I knew we were going to hit the ball," Wood said. "We’ve got a great-hitting team top to bottom."

Cole Sibley’s two-run triple highlighted a four-run fifth inning, and OLSM scored twice in the sixth to end the game.

For the Eaglets, Sibley had three hits and three RBI, freshman Nolan Schubart had two hits and two RBI, and senior Ryan DuSang and freshman Jack Crighton also both had two hits.

Kolbe Stewart had a triple in the second inning, and Joe Terpenning added a single for Oakridge.

Click for the full box score.

PHOTOS: (Top) Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Logan Wood (11) and Steve Essig (15) join their teammates in celebrating a Semifinal win Thursday. (Middle) GRCC catcher Luke Passinault and pitcher Joe Collins go airborne after shutting down Trenton.

Balanced, Gritty Lamphere Back Among Baseball's Best

By Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half

May 27, 2021

Two walk-off home runs defined the success of the Madison Heights Lamphere baseball team’s regular-season championship run this spring.

The next two games will determine the success of the Rams’ postseason.

Lamphere – 22-3 and ranked No. 7 in Division 2 this week – is in the midst of one of the program’s best seasons, as the Rams captured the Macomb Area Conference Gold title outright posting a 13-2 mark. On May 19, Lamphere faced St. Clair Shores Lakeview in the last division game of the season. If Lakeview had won, it would have created a shared title with Lamphere (the teams also shared in 2019). But with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning, Nick Krstich, a junior catcher-third baseman, hit the first pitch he saw for a home run to give Lamphere a 4-3 victory and the outright championship.

“It was probably the greatest moment in my baseball life, and I’ve been playing since I was 8 (years old),” Krstich said. “It took me a few steps to realize it was out. All game they were starting me off with a curveball. They brought in a new guy. He threw a fastball, and it was in my happy zone. As I came around third, all the guys were waiting for me and they all jumped on me as I crossed the plate.”

Rewind another month to April 23, shortly before the start of the league season, when Lamphere played traditional power Detroit Country Day. In a wild affair, junior Aiden McGinnis, a spot starting pitcher who works mainly in relief, came to bat in the bottom of the seventh inning with the score tied at 13-13. McGinnis sent an 0-1 pitch over the left field fence for a 14-13 victory.

“That got us going in the right direction,” Lamphere coach Adam Wooley said. “That was cool. It showed we could play with anybody.”

Wooley is in his 20th season as the program’s head varsity coach and his teams, for the most part, have been competitive. His best were headed by players like Greg Fettes, Ryan Horvath and others a decade ago. In 2010, Lamphere reached the MHSAA Division 2 Regional Finals before losing to eventual champion Dearborn Divine Child. The next season expectations were greater with the return of Fettes and Horvath, but Lamphere lost to Country Day in District play.

“We had seven players who went on to play in college from those teams,” Wooley said. “We have five on this team. We won Districts in 2012 and 2014, and again in 2019. It probably sounds worn out, but I thought we’d be good this year. We had eight starters back (from two years ago) and they had had success. They were anticipating getting back together.

“I’m a lot different coach than I was 10 years ago. I was like a Kirk Gibson then, intense. Now I’m more like a Miguel Cabrera, more laid back.”

Wooley has 16 on his varsity roster, including nine seniors. There are no superstars – just a bunch of good players who pull for each other and have played a lot of baseball together over the years.

Wooley said he and his program hit a downturn for a few years following the 2014 season. Coaching had become a drudgery, not something Wooley looked forward to after teaching class (at Lamphere). Simply put, he got stale.

“I questioned myself,” he said. “It was getting to the point where I was getting frustrated. Then in 2017, I went to an aspiring principal program, as part of my wanting to become an administrator. I had a chance to look at myself. It made me look at my core values. Core values? What are they? I needed to change.”

Wooley redefined his role as a coach. He built his new approach on what he calls the three pillars of his program – trust, commitment and grit.

“The mantra is family,” he said. “We give up so much to be a part of this. You have to understand that we are working toward the same goal. That grit piece? I’m from Madison Heights. No one has succeeded in this town without hard work.”

After last season was cancelled due to COVID-19, Wooley knew there would be a transition period so he intentionally started the season late (April 9) to give his players time to get back to basics. And he’s convinced that extra time spent practicing paid off.

Lamphere’s strengths are hitting, one through nine in the order, and pitching. The players are patient at the plate, and they’re not afraid to fail.

Lamphere baseballOne of Lamphere’s top players is Jake Malak, a pitcher-catcher-outfielder, who will play at St. Clair Community College next season. Malak is batting over .400 and is 4-0 as the team’s No. 2 starter.

The third starter is Dylan Chargo, who’s 3-0 with an ERA below 2.50. He’s batting .350 with 10 extra-base hits.

Defensively, Lamphere makes the routine plays. K.J. Whitman covers a lot of ground in center field, and shortstop Noah Hurst earned the nickname “dirtball” because he’s always diving for ground balls and dirtying his uniform.

And Wooley has the luxury of rotating three catchers on a weekly basis – Chargo, Malak and Krstich.

Malak is one of the leaders and, like Krstich, was a starter on the football team. Malak comes from a family of catchers. His father, Ricky Malak, was a catcher at Madison High. His grandfather, Ronald Malak, also caught and his cousin Billy Malak was a catcher-third baseman on the Madison Heights Bishop Foley teams that claimed a Finals three-peat with Division 3 titles in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

“I love catching,” Jake Malak said. “I like being the leader on the field. I honestly love everything about it. You’re always doing something.”

To stay on top of his game during the cancelled 2020 season, Malak continued to do “something.” He worked with his father one-on-one on catching drills and hitting. Malak also joined a health club nearby to maintain his conditioning.

On Tuesday, Lamphere will play Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood in a Division 2 District opener at Orchard Lake St. Mary’s. Cranbrook handed Lamphere its only nonconference loss, 9-4. The winner will play Country Day on June 5 in a District Semifinal. Should Lamphere win, the Rams will likely play the host team, top-ranked St. Mary’s, for the championship that same afternoon.

It’s a daunting task but one the Rams have been preparing for since the start of the season. And should they reach the District Final and play St. Mary’s which, by virtue of its title in 2019, is the reigning Division 2 champion, Lamphere would be a decided underdog.

So be it.

“Hey, it’s baseball,” Krstich said. “Anything can happen.”

Tom Markowski is a correspondent for the State Champs! Sports Network and previously directed its web coverage. He also covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.

PHOTOS: (Top) Aiden McGinnis (22) and his Lamphere teammates have had plenty to smile about this spring. (Middle) KJ Whitman makes his move toward the plate Friday against Madison Heights Bishop Foley. (Photos courtesy of Allison Minowa and the Lamphere baseball program.)