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.
Brother Rice Finals Hero Aiming to Ace Family Life, Financial World
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
July 6, 2023
Matt Conway said the 2008 Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice baseball team he played on wasn’t necessarily the most talented group to ever come through the state.
But that squad was still plenty good, and there was one thing that became evident during the playoff run the Warriors went on 15 years ago.
“Nobody really stood a chance,” Conway said.
It was certainly hard to argue.
During the MHSAA Division 1 Tournament, Brother Rice outscored its opponents by a combined score of 74-8 and never trailed during its seven playoff games.
The run culminated with an 8-0 win over Saline in the Division 1 championship game at Battle Creek’s C.O. Brown Stadium, led by a four-hit shutout from Conway on the mound. The title was Brother Rice’s third in school history and remains its most recent.
“The team camaraderie we had and the willingness we had to play for each other really showed in the way we dominated the playoffs,” said Conway, who now works for Center Rock Capital Partners, a private equity industrial firm based in Bloomfield Hills.
While the Warriors that year had camaraderie and chemistry, one thing they also had that other teams didn’t was Conway, who at the time was arguably the best prep player in the state.
Not only was the 6-foot-7 Conway an ace pitcher, he was also a fearsome power hitter at or near the top of the lineup.
The shutout in the championship game as a junior was only one of his achievements in high school, given he was also named first-team all-state in 2008 and 2009.
During his junior year, Conway batted .429 at the plate and was 11-1 on the mound.
Conway was an all-around force again for Brother Rice in 2009, but the Warriors fell short in their bid to repeat, losing in a Quarterfinal to Saline.
After graduating from Brother Rice in 2009, Conway went on to play baseball at Wake Forest, and his college career got off to a terrific start. He was named a freshman All-American at Wake Forest after leading the Demon Deacons with a .382 batting average during his first college season.
He went off during the summer after his sophomore year to play in the prestigious Cape Cod Baseball League in Massachusetts, arguably the nation’s premier summer league for college prospects and followed intensely by pro scouts.
Unfortunately, a knee injury made his time there short-lived.
“Unfortunately in the first game, I got hurt pretty bad,” Conway said. “I had to leave the Cape, and things weren’t really the same ever since.”
Conway eventually finished a nice college career at Wake Forest, but had to battle through more knee injuries.
He ultimately decided a professional baseball career wasn’t meant to be.
“At that point, I realized this is maybe not the path I was supposed to take,” Conway said. “I played through my senior year, and then took the uniform off and put on a suit. It was a little different, but I do believe things happen for a reason.”
Indeed, Conway has no complaints. He’s happily married to his wife Stephanie and has two children, an 18-month-old daughter and an infant son about a month old.
As an alum of Wake Forest, Conway was obviously thrilled to see the Demon Deacons advance to the College World Series semifinals and earn the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament this season.
“I had a ticket booked to Omaha to go to the championship series if they made it,” he said.
Conway has worked for Center Rock Capital Partners since 2018 and has always had plenty of knowledge in the financial and business sectors, given his father, Van, is a renowned financial consultant who owns a firm in Birmingham.
While his baseball playing days have been over for a while, Matt Conway said the lessons he learned playing in high school for Brother Rice head coach Bob Riker, and at Wake Forest for head coach Tom Walter, prepared him well for his current career and will always be with him.
“Time management, prioritizing and making sure you are on top of what you need to get done,” Conway said. “It taught me more than I could ever think of.”
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PHOTOS (Top) Brother Rice’s Matt Conway walks to the plate to accept his medal after the Warriors' Division 1 title-clinching win in 2008, and these days is building a family with wife Stephanie. (Middle) Conway makes his move toward the plate during that 2008 championship game. (Baseball photos from MHSAA archives; family photo courtesy of the Conway family.)