Algonac Diamond Teams Hope Matching Successes Lead to East Lansing

By Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com

May 24, 2023

Kenna Bommarito remembers how many people were in East Lansing a year ago to support her and her Algonac softball teammates at the Division 3 Semifinals.

Bay & ThumbSo, she has an idea of how many people from the town would show up if both the softball and baseball teams were there this time around.

“I think everyone would be,” the junior pitcher said.

There’s a decent possibility that Bommarito’s theory could be tested. The Muskrats softball team is ranked No. 2 in Division 3, and Tuesday night clinched the first Blue Water Area Conference title in program history.

That came one night after the baseball team – ranked No. 1 in Division 3 – also won its first BWAC title. The BWAC was created in 2002, and Algonac was an original member.

“It’s amazing – this town loves it,” said senior baseball player Tyler Schultz. “We’ve got a small community, and everybody is tagging along. I remember last year, a couple of our final postseason games, that was the most people I’ve ever seen at a game. All of the sports here are starting to build up. We have athletes all around the school. I think as time goes on, I think each sport will get better and better.”

Bommarito’s imagined scenario nearly played out a year ago, as both teams made their deepest postseason run.

While the softball team was making its historic run to the Semifinal, the baseball team was making one of its own, advancing to the Quarterfinal for the first time in program history.

Matthew Rix slides into home as a throw comes in.The baseball team’s movement toward this started with the 2017 and 2018 seasons, when the Muskrats won back-to-back District titles.

“We had a couple DI (college) players, and when you have those players come through, it generates excitement through the youth,” said Algonac baseball coach Scott Thaler, who took over the program in 2017. “It’s been a trickle-down effect from that initial first two years. That really set the bar. We’ve had some really good baseball players come through, and I have a great staff.”

Thaler had stressed back then that he wanted to build a program at Algonac and not have it be a flash in the pan. That certainly looks like it’s happening, and not just because his Muskrats are winning and sitting atop the state rankings.

Algonac – which has fewer than 500 students in the entire school – has junior varsity and freshman baseball teams. Thaler also said there are 25 eighth graders coming into the program next year.

“I think that when I was smaller in little league, we didn’t really have that where we went out on the field with the varsity players,” said junior pitcher Josh Kasner. “Now, that’s gotten a lot better. A lot of the smaller kids we see around town, they know who we are and about (the program).”

Of course, talent wasn’t enough to get there. Thaler needed to instill belief in his team in order to help the younger generation see what was possible.

“I was a (football assistant) coach under Scott Barnhart, and one of the things we preached to the kids back then is ‘To believe in the things you haven’t seen before,’” Thaler said. “That’s the mantra we brought to them last year, ‘Why not us?’ Just because it hasn’t happened before here doesn’t mean you can’t believe in that. We had to get them to believe.”

The Quarterfinal run provided proof beyond the belief for the Muskrats, and then the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association added to it all, naming Algonac the preseason No. 1 team in Division 3.

Luckily for Thaler, his team took it in stride.

The Muskrats huddle up in the baseball outfield.“I mean, it was a great feeling, but part of me had some doubts,” Schultz said “We’ve got some younger kids on the team, and I thought that maybe they might look at that and might get complacent, but me and some of the other seniors have done a good job of keeping all of these guys looking forward. We’ve still got one goal, and that’s to finish (with a Finals title).”

While the softball team didn’t enter the season with a No. 1 ranking, the expectations were certainly there, as was a new target on its back.

But bigger than both was motivation following a walk-off loss to Millington in the Semifinal.

“I think it just shows us that in those big games with those types of teams, you can never say never,” said first-year softball coach Natalie Heim, who was an assistant on last year’s team. “You really have to bear down. That Millington team that beat us, they fought hard. But I definitely think it fuels us more to get back.”

The softball program’s rise may have seemed more sudden to those on the outside, but senior Ella Stephenson said it had been bubbling for a while.

“My sophomore year, we had some talent for sure,” she said. “We had a really good season, but not as good as junior and senior year. The class above me was really talented. But they kind of turned the program around in my eighth-grade year, and it kind of kept building from there.”

During Stephenson’s sophomore season, the Muskrats lost a tough District game against Richmond, which went on to win the Division 3 Finals title. Not only are the Blue Devils a common early postseason opponent for the Muskrats, they’re also a conference rival. As is Almont. And Croswell-Lexington. And … It’s a brutal conference.

The Algonac softball team stands together for a team photo.So, much like the baseball team, even during the softball team’s historic 2022 season, winning the conference this spring proved to be tougher than making a deep postseason run.

That made Tuesday night’s sweep of North Branch to clinch the BWAC that much sweeter.

“Honestly, it’s a rush of just happiness,” Bommarito said. “We’re all so excited and just can’t believe we did it. We just played game-by-game today, and really took it one pitch, one out at a time.”

Not only has the BWAC prepared the Muskrats for the possibility of another deep postseason run, it helped keep them focused throughout the season.

“I think a lot of teams don’t have that luxury of facing the best competition during the season,” Heim said. “I think it keeps (the Muskrats) not looking too far ahead. We try to have that approach of one game at a time, one inning at a time, one pitch at a time. It helps with having goals that are a little tougher to achieve. Winning our league, it’s tough. It’s not an easy feat. Especially after last year’s success, it would have been easy to look ahead.”

Now, with league titles secured, both teams can focus on their ultimate goals and the postseason that is directly in front of them.

All with the hope that their similarities – on top of the league titles, both teams are 29-2 as of Wednesday, and both have a University of Michigan-bound player (Kasner and Stephenson) – continue through the third weekend of June with matching trips to East Lansing.

“That’d be unreal. That would be so cool,” Stephenson said. “We all have really good friendships on the baseball and softball teams. Our records are identical. We both won our conference. It’s just really cool. I’m really happy for their success, and ours, too.”

Paul CostanzoPaul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.

PHOTOS (Top) Algonac pitcher Kenna Bommarito makes her move toward the plate during last season’s Division 3 Semifinal against Millington. (2) Matthew Rix slides into home as a throw comes in. (3) The Muskrats huddle up in the baseball outfield. (4) The Algonac softball team stands together for a team photo. (Baseball photos and softball team photo courtesy of the Algonac athletic department.)

Similarities Tie Slugging Pair's 1991 Pursuit of .600 Average, Paths After

By Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com

June 11, 2024

They both remember chasing the identical goal 33 years ago.

It wasn't so much that Hastings' Nick Williams and Dwain Koscielniak of Gaylord St. Mary were aware in 1991 of becoming the first MHSAA-recognized .600 hitters in state history. What the two remember most about their magical final high school seasons has little to do with records, but simply closing out outstanding baseball careers with a bang.

"I think it was the same scenario for both of us," Williams said. "You just want to get a hit, drive the ball every time you're up."

It may be forgotten now, but in an era where tracking batting averages wasn't as simple as inserting a thumb drive and a couple clicks on a laptop, it's easy to see how the one-of-a-kind hitting exploits of Williams and Koscielniak may be overlooked. For instance, with just days left in their senior seasons neither knew they were closing in on the state record for batting average of .577 by Greg Atkinson of Maple City Glen Lake in 1985. The two were more focused on helping their teams win District titles and then beginning their summers.

About all the pair really knew was that magical seasons were about to end. Both were batting over .600, but when ballplayers are hitting that well, there's a fine line in maintaining such rare territory. As both found out – one painfully so and the other happily – every at-bat is critical. Koscielniak wound up slugging a pair of homers in his final game to finish with a .629 mark while Williams, who started the last day of his senior season with a hefty .612 mark, went hitless for the first time all spring to finish at 591.

While the chase to hit .600 is obviously an entertaining story, it's only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the amazing parallels between the lives of Koscielniak and Williams, who lived 170 miles apart growing up in Gaylord and Hastings, respectively.

Both, for example, were outstanding dual-sport athletes. Koscielniak graduated second on the Michigan football career rushing list with 5,078 yards from 1987-90, and he still owns the state single-game record of 529 yards against Pellston on Oct. 26, 1990. Williams, meanwhile, averaged 24 points per game as a senior in basketball and could have been a dual-sport athlete at the next level if not for sticking with baseball.

In addition, both went on to stellar collegiate careers. Williams was a second-team all-Mid-American Conference selection in 1995 as a junior, and Central Michigan University captain as a senior. Koscielniak played two years at Mott Community College before becoming a slugging catcher/infielder at Ferris State. He was named Player of the Year in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1994 when he won the league’s triple crown hitting .403 with nine home runs and 37 RBIs.

They continue to rank among the elite on the MHSAA record book list for top batting averages for a single season. Both had flirtations with pro ball as Williams was taken by the Seattle Mariners in the 48th round of the 1991 MLB draft and later drew interest from Boston and Cincinnati following his time at CMU. Koscielniak was drafted by San Diego in the 32nd round in 1994 and reached High-A a year later. He batted .261 with 32 RBIs in 64 games over two minor league seasons.

Koscielniak and Williams, who unknowingly played against each other with their college teams in 1994, also both wound up in athletics after college. Williams became an associate athletic director at Central Michigan, while Koscielniak coached baseball at Gaylord St. Mary.

There's more as both players are fathers of college-level talents. Williams' daughter Jayden ran track at Central Michigan while another daughter, Taryn, is playing volleyball at Delta College. Koscielniak's sons Steven and Christopher both played baseball at Delta College, daughter Brooke is an equestrian at Saginaw Valley State, and youngest son Brett is a three-sport athlete at Gaylord St. Mary.

If there's one more nugget which Williams and Koscielniak have in common, it’s that both credit long hours of work for becoming outstanding hitters. Williams would use a tarp in the family garage for a makeshift hitting cage, while Koscielniak's offseason hitting quarters was a cage stuck away in a pole barn. Both said they would never have approached being .600 hitters without putting in loads of extra time.

"I got my swings in several times a week in the offseason, and that really helped me," said Koscielniak, whose professional career received its earliest spark when a Ferris State science teacher/part-time MLB scout wandered past the school's gymnasium and noticed Koscielniak practicing throws to second base from his spot as catcher during winter workouts.

Williams remembers getting in about 200 at-bats with summer travel teams in Hastings, Grand Rapids and Battle Creek between his junior and senior years.

"I had a lot of success as a hitter because I put the time in," said Williams, who remembers half a dozen scouts at every Saxons game as a senior. "I didn't play a fall sport, and I put in a lot of time just hitting. I became aware of being able to hit the ball the other way, and I think my confidence began to grow."

As for approaching the .600 mark during their final seasons, Williams and Koscielniak said they were blissfully unaware of any state batting records. Williams does recall never considering trying to preserve a .600 average by taking a game off down the stretch.

"No, I never (had) a thought of that – not even a conversation," he said. "A lot of time has passed since then, but I don't remember sitting out at all. No way. I was always going to play, and that's it."

Koscielniak also doesn't recall worrying about hitting 600. While Koscielniak was the first .600 hitter in state history, only 17 others have gone on to become MHSAA-recognized .600 batters. Dan Taylor of Kingsley holds the state record for highest average with a .688 mark in 2007.

Koscielniak also hit 17 home runs as a senior and finished his career with 35, which continues to rank eighth on that statewide all-time list.

"Back then if you loved the game, you just played. How it turned out for me is how it turned out," he said. "I was competitive and played hard. I played well at Mott and then Ferris State, and the door opened up for me a little."

Williams and Koscielniak remember one huge drawback in trying to hit .600: walks. Pitchers would simply not give them anything to hit. Williams remembers a doubleheader against Coldwater where he hit home runs in his first at-bats in both games, then received two intentional walks in both games. Koscielniak's two homers in his final game were followed by two intentional walks.

Such a stingy pitching philosophy was par for the course, they say.

"That becomes very difficult for a hitter," Williams said. "You have to be dialed in when you get your opportunities. It was a fun year for me, but a struggle at times because (the walks) make you feel like you're not doing your job for the team.

"I don't think hitting .600 was a big deal. We didn't talk about stats and those things. You keep track a little, but I had no idea till the end of the year. And in the end, it's not about stats. I loved playing baseball."

These days, Williams is an instructor as part of the physical education and sport faculty at CMU, teaching courses on professional and collegiate athletics. Koscielniak is an operation manager for Schwan’s Food Service and with his wife Liz owns the Gaylord Equestrian Center.

PHOTOS (Top) Dwain Koscielniak, left, and Nick Williams stand for recent photos; they were the state’s top high school hitters in 1991 as both pursued a .600 batting average. (Middle) They continue to rank among the elite on the MHSAA record book list for top batting averages for a single season. (Photos courtesy of Koscielniak and Williams.)