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Homer, Liggett Set Up Saturday Meeting
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
June 14, 2019
EAST LANSING – Jacob Wilson just wanted to start jumping up and down Friday after his game-winning single sent Homer to the MHSAA Division 3 Baseball Final.
But before he could fully celebrate, he had to make it to first base, something he admitted he had to be reminded to do.
“The coach told me to (run to first),” Wilson said.
He made it without issue and was mobbed by his teammates as Homer defeated Pewamo-Westphalia 2-1 in nine innings at McLane Baseball Stadium on the campus of Michigan State University. The Trojans advanced to Saturday’s Final against Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett, which defeated Gladstone 5-0 in the other Semifinal.
“What an unbelievable setting, and to have a 2-1 walkoff in the bottom of the ninth at Michigan State, that’s stuff you dream of at the beginning of the season,” Homer coach Scott Salow said. “It was an unbelievable ballgame. Two great teams.”
Wilson’s hit down the third-base line ended a game dominated by pitching and defense, as he and Pewamo-Westphalia starter Brendan Thelen kept hitters off balance for the majority.
In the ninth inning, however, Homer was able to load the bases with no outs, and Wilson drove in Zach Butters for the walk-off win.
“I was up to bat and I was looking at my teammates while they were on base, and they were just looking at me smiling, giving me a thumbs up,” Wilson said. “I just had faith in myself that I could get it down.”
Butters’ run was the first since the second inning, and ended one of the few Homer threats. Thelen threw 7 2/3 innings prior to reaching his pitch-count maximum, striking out five and allowing three walks, two hits and one run. He allowed just one Homer runner to get to third base.
“Their coach, Scott Salow, has a great program, and he said that’s the best pitcher they’ve seen all year,” Pewamo-Westphalia coach Mark Rademacher said. “They only got two hits on him, and he said that’s the best pitcher they’ve seen. Brendan rose up to the occasion. He kept us in the game when we were leaving guys stranded on base, and our defense was helping him out. It was just a great performance on his part.”
Wilson put together a gem of his own, allowing six hits and two walks while striking out five in 6 2/3 innings, also leaving the game because of his pitch count. He pitched out of a jam in the sixth inning, as Pewamo-Westphalia had a runner at third with one out. Wilson was able to get a strikeout and a popout to end the threat.
“Just survive,” Salow said of Wilson. “I don’t know how many chances they had with leadoff guys on. It seemed like we were fighting fires most of the game, especially in the middle innings.”
Pewamo-Westphalia opened the scoring in the second inning, as Aaron Bearss drove in Ethan Thelen with a single.
Homer responded in the bottom of the second, as Kyle Compton stole home on a designed play. Wilson, who was on first, purposefully fell on a steal attempt, forcing a throw to first and allowing Compton to head home.
“We spend a lot of time on our first-and-third offense, trying to put balls in play without the aid of a bat,” Salow said. “It’s a play that we practice all the time, and it worked out almost to perfection.”
Compton finished with two hits and two walks for Homer (32-3). Butters picked up the win in relief, striking out one and allowing two hits in 2 1/3 innings.
Tanner Wirth and Ethan Thelen each had two hits for the Pirates (31-3).
Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett 5, Gladstone 0
Alec Azar had all the run support he needed before he stepped on the mound.
The Liggett senior pitcher threw his first pitch with a 2-0 lead, which was more than enough as he put together a dominant outing to lead the Knights into the Division 3 Final, their first since 2016.
“That’s what I like about being away,” Azar said. “You get ahead, and then I can come out on the mound and get really comfortable and throw my game.”
Azar carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning and finished the game with 12 strikeouts and two hits allowed.
“He was lights out,” Liggett coach Dan Cimini said. “I told him this was going to be his last start as a senior at Liggett and I need his best, and he gave us his best. He almost had a no-hitter, threw the ball really well, had his best stuff, great slider, fastball. He just did everything he could for our team today to get us a W.”
Logan King hit a two-run home run with two outs in the top of the first inning, which Gladstone coach Kelly Shea said stunned his team. The Braves remained stunned as Azar struck out the first four batters he faced.
“Our pitcher got them with two ground balls to start the first inning, and I thought we’re going to get out of the inning,” Shea said. “Then they had a kind of so-so base hit, then he hangs that next pitch and they pounded it over the fence. It kind of took the wind out of our sails, and we never got back.”
Azar added two hits at the plate, while Nick Post had two hits, including an RBI double for the Knights. King finished with three RBI on the day.
Carson Shea, who started on the mound for Gladstone, broke up Azar’s no-hitter with two outs in the sixth inning. Jared Crow added a double for the Braves in the seventh.
PHOTOS: (Top) Homer’s Zach Butters heads home for the game-winning run in Friday’s first Semifinal against Pewamo-Westphalia. (Middle) Liggett's Alec Azar makes his move toward the plate.
![The Carrow family stands together in front of the welcome sign to Carrow Field – including daughter Tiffany (front left), Mark and Mary (second from left, front and back) and son Chris (far right).](/sites/default/files/2023-05/230504_Brighton_2H.jpg)
Brighton Names Baseball Field for Program Builder, Longtime Leader
By
Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com
May 4, 2023
BRIGHTON — Mark Carrow didn’t know what to expect April 22 when he arrived at Brighton High School’s baseball field, where he was the guest of honor for a ceremony officially naming it Carrow Field.
“I remember back in October, when they announced this would happen, I told my wife, Mary, that there will be probably 60-70 people here, because there are 18 players on each team and their parents,” he recalled. “We pulled up here and there were all these people, and these young men who look older now.”
Dozens of Brighton alumni, some of whom Carrow hadn’t seen since their high school days nearly a half-century ago, were in attendance for the ceremony held before a doubleheader with Ypsilanti Lincoln.
Carrow retired in 2006 after 34 seasons as Brighton’s baseball coach, recording 823 wins, now eighth on the state’s all-time list. He also was an assistant football coach and coached both boys and girls middle school basketball.
He came to Brighton a year after graduating from the University of Michigan, where he played baseball for the Wolverines, starring at third base.
“My dream was to coach baseball at Ann Arbor High,” Carrow said of his high school alma mater, now Ann Arbor Pioneer. “That was my dream.”
But he had applied to Brighton Area Schools as well, and after a year teaching in Grand Rapids, he and Mary both were offered teaching positions.
“Wouldn’t you know it? We were in school for two days and Ann Arbor calls me up,” Carrow said. “They had a phys ed job open. I’d have been the JV football coach, and I knew the baseball coach was on his way out. It was everything I wanted, and I went to (administrator) Bob Scranton and said, ‘Here’s what’s happening.’ He told me to think about it over the weekend and come back Monday.
“My wife and I talked it over, and we were so grateful to Brighton for giving us a chance to be near our hometown that we felt we owed them a year,” Carrow said. “In November, we bought a house that we lived in for 22 years.”
Brighton’s sports teams weren’t the dominant squads of today. The football team had had two winning seasons in 20 years, and the year Carrow arrived went 0-9.
“We played in six homecoming games, including our own,” he said. “Everyone wanted to play us.”
The baseball team wasn’t much better, having gone decades without a winning season.
But the Bulldogs were 12-12 that first spring under Carrow’s leadership, and never finished below .500 during the rest of his tenure.
The Bulldogs joined the Southeastern Conference the next year and got off to a 7-0 start before losing at Lincoln.
“The kids were crying on the bus ride home,” Carrow said, “and I knew right then that Brighton had turned a corner, that it meant something to win and losing wasn’t acceptable anymore.”
Brighton took off, winning 20 games or more in all of his last 23 years as a coach, and a total of 13 league titles, 12 District titles, three Regional crowns and while making two trips to the Semifinals.
The talent was there, too, including 16 all-state players and two Mr. Baseball Award winners in Ron Hollis and Drew Henson.
Carrow earned national and Michigan Coach of the Year honors three times apiece and was inducted into the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1992.
The field was renamed in his honor after the Brighton school board changed its policy to allow the renaming of facilities to honor living persons less than two years ago.
But Carrow is quick to cite the reasons for his success.
“The players are the ones who made this possible,” he said. “I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I never threw a pitch or hit the baseball. I got 800 wins, but it was because of them.
Carrow has a photographic memory, which came in handy while chatting with former players.
“It was funny, because with each kid I remembered an incident about them,” he said. “Jeff Bogos, who I hadn’t seen since he graduated in 1979, came out and I said, ‘Do you remember when we were at Milan and your knee went out (of place) in the middle of the field?’ It happened twice. He said, ‘How do you remember that?’ And I said, ‘How could I not?’”
Carrow moved to Florida after his retirement, where he and his longtime assistant, George Reck, meet up a couple of times a week. He makes frequent trips north to watch U-M football and to visit his son, Chris, who lives in Chicago.
Baseball is firmly in his past.
“I think I’ve been to one high school game since I went down there,” Carrow said. “I hated the way the coach was coaching, and Mary did, too. She said, ‘We don’t have to watch any more high school baseball,’ and I said, ‘You’re right.’”
When he retired, Carrow said he would likely be forgotten in a few years.
Seventeen years later, his legacy is assured and his memory will be invoked any time one looks at the scoreboard in left-center field that has a “Carrow Field” sign on top of it.
Not bad for a coach who was in the right place at the right time.
“My dream was fulfilled, and rightly so,” Carrow said. “And, believe me, I made the right decision. I couldn't have had better kids to teach or lived in a better community. It couldn't have worked out any better.”
PHOTOS (Top) The Carrow family stands together in front of the welcome sign to Carrow Field – including daughter Tiffany (front left), Mark and Mary (second from left, front and back) and son Chris (far right). (Middle) The Carrow name stands tall atop the scoreboard at the field named for the longtime coach. (Family photo by Daniel Collins.)