Small Ball, Brawley Come Up Big in Repeat
June 16, 2018
By Jason Schmitt
Special for Second Half
EAST LANSING – Never underestimate the importance of defense – especially when it comes down to one final game to decide it all.
Stevensville Lakeshore played solid defense and took advantage of four Saginaw Swan Valley errors, and enjoyed a stellar pitching performance by senior Joel Brawley to claim a 6-3 victory in Saturday’s MHSAA Division 2 Final.
The championship was the Lancers’ second straight, making them the first to repeat at the Finals level of the tournament since Grand Rapids Christian in 2012-13.
“I always tell (my team), good teams get to the final four, great teams win it,” said Lakeshore head coach Mark Nate, whose team beat Bay City John Glenn in the 2017 title game. “That’s how we lived it last year, and we weren’t just happy to get here. Last year, we wanted to win it, and we did.
“This year, the whole talk was – for 365 days – repeat, repeat and we had a long way to go. The way we were playing in April, you would have never believed we’d be standing here now.”
Lakeshore’s game is built around pressuring its opponents by playing small ball. It worked right from the start Saturday. It didn’t take the Lancers long to take advantage of Swan Valley’s struggling defense, as they struck twice in the top of the first inning with a pair of runs on throwing errors.
Senior Sean Branch got things started with a base hit to center field. After stealing second, he moved to third on an infield single by senior Bray Plomb, then scored on an overthrow to first base. On the next play, junior Cam Dalrymple beat out a bunt to third base, and courtesy runner Ryan Soper scored on a poor throw to first, giving his team a 2-0 lead.
Lakeshore (27-14) would add two more runs in the fourth inning, again aided by the Vikings’ defense. Sophomore Oli Carmody walked to start the inning, stole second base and scored on a bunt single by Brawley when the throw to first sailed into foul territory. Brawley’s courtesy runner, junior Kyle Wojahn, would later score on a fielder’s choice by Branch to up the lead to 4-0.
“We lost four good (players) from last year, but we gained three to four good ones. And once they started learning our game, it started to click for us,” Nate said. “At the end of the day, if you stick with the plan, you can produce a lot of runs by not really even hitting the ball, (using) speed and small ball. It’s a huge part of Lakeshore baseball.”
The Lancers capped off their scoring with two runs in the fifth. Carmody walked and moved to second on a single by junior Jared Evans. Brawley then hit a grounder to short, but the throw pulled the first baseman off the bag, allowing Carmody to score. Senior Logan Morrow then drove in Evans with a bloop single to make it 6-0.
Swan Valley (33-9-3) scored a run in the bottom of the fifth inning thanks to three singles, two that didn’t leave the infield. Junior Conner Sika had a one-out single to get things started. With two outs, senior Cameron Schroeder and sophomore Brian Ross pieced together back-to-back infield hits.
Sophomore Mitchell Jebb then hit a grounder to third, but the throw pulled the first baseman off the bag, allowing Sika to score the Vikings’ first run of the game.
Swan Valley would add two more in the bottom of the seventh on a two-run double by sophomore Easton Goldensoph, which plated sophomores Victor Mancini and Brian Ross.
Brawley went 6? innings on the mound, scattering 10 hits before being pulled due to pitch count. Carmody came in and got the last out to end the game.
“There’s nothing like it, to go back-to-back,” said Brawley, whose cousin Connor pitched 7? scoreless innings Thursday, helping his team to a 3-0 shutout victory over Orchard Lake St. Mary’s in a Semifinal game. “This team has worked so hard, and we feel like we deserve it. I felt like this was just another game; that’s how you’ve got to think of it. I had to go out there and do my job and let the defense work, and good things will happen.”
Connor Brawley, Evans and Morrow each collected a pair of hits in their team’s victory.
Ross, one of eight sophomores on Swan Valley’s roster, took the loss on the mound. He pitched 3? innings, allowing six hits and three earned runs while striking out four.
“Hey, we had a great year. That’s a very good team,” Swan Valley coach Craig Leddy said. “We’re young. I know it’s tough to get back here, but we’ve got all the kids to get back here. Our No. 1 is a freshman, our No. 2 is a junior and our No. 3 is a sophomore. We’ve just got to play clean ball like we did all year. You can’t play in a championship game and make mistakes, and we made mistakes.”
VIDEO: Logan Morrow had two hits, including this RBI single in the fifth inning for Stevensville Lakeshore.
PHOTOS: (Top) Stevensville Lakeshore’s Joel Brawley delivers a pitch during Saturday’s Division 2 Final at McLane Stadium. (Middle) Swan Valley’s Easton Goldensoph stretches to beat a throw to first base.
Record Board Celebrates Hastings Record-Setters Over 7 Decades on Diamond
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
May 29, 2024
Bernie Oom had no intention of letting the past slide into history.
So the 88-year-old retired longtime Hastings baseball coach embarked on a meticulous two-year labor-of-love project that recognized the Saxons’ record-breaking ballplayers from the last five decades.
The result is an impressive 63-by-52-inch record board attached to the baseball field's press box located directly behind home plate. The board chronicles a myriad of individual pitching, hitting and team marks derived from Oom's 22 years as coach as well as statistics from his six successors.
Included are records from the top players in Hastings history, including a former Saxon who collected the last hit off hall-of-famer Nolan Ryan, a slugging catcher who was drafted by Seattle and Cincinnati and spent time in the Boston organization, and a Hastings pitcher who owns the oldest mark when he fashioned a 0.35 ERA with just two runs allowed in 40 innings in 1969.
Oom, a member of the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association (MHSBCA) Hall of Fame, always kept close track of statistics and records as a coach. Two years ago when his son Wayne began a similar project with the Hastings track program, Oom thought it was time for his former diamond stars to be recognized. While a handful of schools may post scattered records in gymnasiums, it's extremely rare for a school to post records at a baseball field.
"I always liked statistics, and I decided I wanted to keep that kind of stuff up. I'm kind of a stickler for remembering things; details are important to me," said Oom, who compiled a 272-188 record with eight West Central and Twin Valley titles as coach from 1966-87.
"I talked to a lot of my old players, and they thought this was a great idea. But part of the real value is having a ninth grader looking at this and saying, 'I see this, and I want to be up there some day.' I think it will spur things in the program."
In collecting info for the board, Oom went through his 22 seasons of statistics and records, then contacted the six coaches who followed him, including one, Jeff Simpson, who now lives in Arizona. Oom and his son visited local schools such as Grandville and Grand Rapids South Christian for ideas and decided to work with a company called School Pride out of Columbus, Ohio, to produce the board. Oom and the company took two years to get it right, Oom said.
The result are 12 team, 10 offensive and nine individual pitching records as well as a list of the program's all-staters noted on the board.
Point to any records and the still razor-sharp Oom will have a story about the player or the team that produced the mark. Among them is the 15 doubles clubbed by star Dann Howitt in 1982. Howitt, who played 115 major league games across six seasons with six clubs, has a unique claim to fame as the last player to collect a hit of Nolan Ryan on Sept. 22, 1993. A 46-year-old Ryan, who finished with 324 wins and 5,734 strikeouts, walked the bases loaded against the Seattle Mariners, bringing up Howitt, who promptly drove a Ryan fastball over the left field fence. Ryan, a right-hander, tore a right elbow ligament pitching to the next hitter and exited the game, never to pitch again.
Oom remembers Howitt more as a line-drive hitter than a power threat. He actually hit more homers as a major leaguer (five) than he did as a Saxon (one in 120 at-bats over two seasons). The doubles record is the only time Howitt appears on the board, despite batting a combined .392 as a junior and senior.
"Teams would pitch around Dann," Oom said of Howitt, whose other claim to fame is backing up stars Mark McGwire, Tino Martinez and Frank Thomas at the major league level.
Among the other records are indicators of arguably the greatest season ever produced by a Hastings hitter. Nick Williams owns program records for batting average (.591), hits (52), homers (8), RBIs (42) and runs (47) all set in 1991. Williams said among his sharpest memories from that spring is struggling through his only hitless game of the season. He went 0-for-3 in the finale to drop below .600 for the only time all spring. At the time, no Michigan high schooler had batted .600 for one season.
"The ball looked big to me all year," said Williams, who was drafted out of high school by the Mariners, out of Central Michigan by the Reds after his junior season and eventually signed with the Red Sox as a free agent. "I had a pretty good high school career, and I was pretty confident as a senior. I had put a lot of work in hitting on a tee in our garage. Then I would play ball all summer. I improved steadily, and I saw the results that summer."
Former Saxons pitcher Steve Pocernik holds the oldest mark on the board after surrendering a meager two runs in 40 innings for a 0.35 ERA in 1969. After 55 years, Pocernik isn't completely sure but thinks the runs came in one game against St. Johns.
"I didn't throw hard, but I had a curve and I could put the ball where I wanted," he said. "(The record) kind of took me by surprise. I think it's super that Bernie had done what he's done. It's a nice thing for the guys who played for him."
Does keeping the record for five and a half decades come as a surprise? Kind of, Pocernik said.
"Yes and no," he said. "Yes in that it's been a lot of years. No because I don't think pitchers today pitch like we did. There are a lot of guys who've come after me."
Another of the Hastings pitching marks is the tiny total of 12 walks in 57 innings by Mike Hause in 1979. That's an average of just 1.4 walks over seven innings. Like Pocernik, Hause said he didn't throw hard. He mixed a curve with a fastball that rode in on righthanded hitters. Speed aside, Hause explains the low number of walks with having a definitive plan as a pitcher. He remembers focusing on throwing first-pitch strikes and then keeping hitters off-balance with an occasional knuckleball.
"I would work on hitting my spot even in the preseason in the gym," he said. "We put up a strike zone mat with holes in it, and I would try to throw the ball through that spot. I didn't throw as hard as some guys, but I threw strikes."
PHOTOS (Top) Retired Hastings baseball coach Bernie Oom stands with the record board he’s created that is displayed at the school’s diamond. (Middle) A Battle Creek Enquirer story from 1991 discusses Nick Williams' accomplishments. (Photo by Steve Vedder.)