Hope Rained Eternal During 1978 Finals
May 31, 2018
By Ron Pesch
Special for Second Half
“If the weatherman is in a co-operative mood, Michigan’s high school athletes, both boys and girls, will wind up another competitive school year Saturday,” wrote Detroit’s premier high school sports scribe, Hal Schram, 40 years ago just prior to the staging of the 1978 MHSAA softball and baseball state finals weekend.
“Let’s hope we get them in on schedule”, said Bob James, director of athletics for the Warren Consolidated Schools and a member of the MHSAA Representative Council. “I’ve been in high school sports for 35 years, and can’t remember a spring with more postponements and cancellations.”
Despite highest hopes, weather would, again, be a factor on the final weekend of the prep season. Games were scheduled for eight locations around the Lower Peninsula, with rain postponing Class B and Class C contests in softball and Class B and Class D in baseball.
SOFTBALL
In the 1979 yearbook, Impressions, published by East Detroit High School, staff celebrated school’s past half-decade of accomplishment and history:
“Girls have been playing softball at East Detroit now for almost 50 years, although it was called the girls baseball team until the mid-sixties. The teams have always done very well, many of them went undefeated, but none of them ever did as well as the 1978 squad.”
Roxanne “Rocky” Szczesniak, who would later earn All-American honors at Wayne State University, tossed a four-hitter and smashed a three-run homer as the Shamrocks eliminated defending Class A champion Portage Central, 6-3, in the day’s opening Semifinal, played at East Detroit’s Memorial Park. It was only the second defeat in 52 games for Portage Central, coached by Tom Monroe.
Waterford Township slipped past Flint Carman, 1-0, in 10 innings in the day’s second Semifinal, then capitalized on six errors by East Detroit in the title game to grab the Class A softball championship, 4-0. In the first inning, Mari Latozas doubled home a run to open the scoring for the Skippers. Waterford then added unearned runs in the third and fifth to seal the win. Coached by Joe Alsup, the Skippers finished the year at 25-3. He would post a 197-39 record in nine seasons at the school before it closed following the 1982-83 school year. Twenty years later, Alsup’s Waterford Kettering team earned the 1998 Class A softball crown. Today, he ranks fourth in all-time softball coaching victories in Michigan.
In Class B, Fenton cruised to their first of three straight titles with an 8-5 win over South Haven at Belknap Park in Grand Rapids on Monday, June 19, the game rescheduled because of the weather. Pitcher Barb Barclay posted her 24th win without a loss and boosted Fenton’s season mark to 28-1. Barclay was instrumental in the win at the plate as well with a triple and a single, while scoring three runs for the Tigers. With two outs in the third inning, Fenton rallied with four straight hits to open up a 2-1 lead. South Haven again jumped in front, 4-2, in the fifth, but Fenton bounced right back, again rallying with two down to open up a 7-4 lead.
“This was our biggest challenge of the season,” said Fenton coach Dave Lazar. “For a young team, South Haven is pretty good. They’re scrappers.”
It was South Haven’s second consecutive trip to the Finals. In 1977, the Rams lost to Grosse Ile, 5-3. South Haven would return to the Finals for a third straight time in 1979, again falling to Fenton.
Earlene Seeley, who would later play college ball at Ferris State, reached first base on a bunt, stole second, then scored on an error to give Shepherd a 1-0 lead over New Lothrop before rain forced delay at Brookwood Park in Clare on Saturday. Pitcher Deb McAvoy, who had hurled three and a third innings of no-hit ball, completed the first no-hitter in MHSAA title game history as Shepherd grabbed a 2-0 victory in the Class C championship on Monday. It would be six more years before a second no-hitter was tossed in the Softball Finals. Since McAvoy’s gem, 14 additional no-nos have been thrown in the MHSAA softball title game.
At Robinson Park in Ionia, Laingsburg swept to a 6-1 win over Central Lake for the Class D softball title. Junior Robbin Sawyer, who upped her record to 17-0 on the season, tossed a two-hitter in the Wolfpack’s 15-2 Semifinal win over Owendale-Gagetown and then held Central Lake to a single hit in the title game. Sue Hurst went 3 for 3 at the plate in the championship game, including singling home a run before scoring on the front end of a double steal, all in the first inning. Carrie Kooster tripled twice in the Semifinal, driving in six runs to lead the Wolves.
BASEBALL
Boasting an outstanding pitching staff, coach Marv Rettenmund’s Flint Southwestern squad rolled through the regular season, then battled its way through the tournament before downing East Kentwood, 7-1, to win the first, and only, Class A baseball title in Flint-area history.
"Sometimes, you have pretty good players, and when you have them, you'd better cash in," Rettenmund told the Flint Journal 30 years later.
Blessed with a “1-2 punch of senior left-hander Ruben Luna (14-0 with a 0.82 earned-run average) and senior right-hander Risto Nicevski (9-1, 0.72),” Southwestern dropped only three of 35 games, (all by a single run) before rolling to 16 straight victories. Tournament play was “capped by five close games,” including a scare in the Semifinal, before the championship matchup.
Luna and Nicevski combined for a one-hitter in the title contest, played at Memorial Field in Wyandotte. Earlier in the day, Luna fanned 12 batters in a three-hit, 1-0 shutout of Plymouth Canton. Third baseman Bob Cardenas singled home designated hitter Al Weatherford in the fifth inning for the game’s only run.
"That was one of the toughest teams we played," said Rettenmund. Plymouth Canton’s Russ Mandle led off the seventh inning with a booming double between the gap in left and centerfield, but was gunned down when trying to stretch it to a triple. “We made a perfect relay — (left fielder Dale) Bennis to (shortstop Matt) Diment to Cardenas.
"That was a once-in-a-lifetime ballclub."
Tom O’Dowd allowed a single hit in Jackson Lumen Christi’s 10-6 victory over Spring Lake in Class B, played at Aquinas College’s Kimble Field in Wyoming. The game, rescheduled to Monday after Saturday’s rain, saw six errors mar Spring Lake’s dreams of a title. Three of Lumen Christi’s first four batters reached base or advanced on errors, and all scored as the Titans jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead. Dave Schonhard notched the game’s only RBI, doubling in a pair of runs in the second inning to increase the lead to five. O’Dowd, selected in the 12th round of Major League Baseball’s amateur draft by the Toronto Blue Jays earlier in the spring, claimed 14 strikeouts, but dealt with control problems, walking 13. Trailing 10-2 entering the bottom of the seventh, the Lakers took advantage, gaining four walks and notching their only hit to pull within four before O’Dowd was relieved and the side was retired.
“We ran into a heckuva pitcher,” said Spring Lake coach Don Rohn following the game. “He throws the ball well. He’s probably the fastest right-hander we’ve seen all season.”
The win capped a stellar school year for the Titans, who won the Class B football crown in the fall and the Tier II hockey title in the winter.
Delayed by heavy rain, Bay City All Saints pounded out 13 hits including three singles by Ed Pawlaczyk, to down Addison, 8-0, in Class C championship play at Marshall High School. Dave Shooltz allowed seven hits in five innings for the win. Randy Morse, who went the distance in the team’s 2-0 Semifinal triumph over Allen Park Cabrini, earned the save. It was the first of seven final game appearances by All Saints and their first of four state baseball titles. The seven visits to the championship game has been equaled by Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett and exceeded by Harper Woods Bishop Gallagher, with eight. Blissfield leads the list with nine trips to championship games, and tops all schools for baseball state titles with seven.
With two outs in the top of the 10th inning, Saranac’s Steve Metternick doubled in two runs to break a 1-1 deadlock as the Redskins topped Frankfort 4-1 in the Class D title showdown. The game, played at Alumni Field on the campus of Central Michigan University, had been interrupted on Saturday at the top of the third, with Saranac leading 1-0. Southpaw Craig Coulson earned the win for the Cinderella squad, going all the way. The sophomore hurler allowed four hits, struck out eight and walked four on the afternoon. Saranac ended the season with 16 victories against 11 defeats.
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (Top) Shepherd’s softball team poses with its 1978 Class C championship trophy. (Middle top) East Detroit’s Rocky Szczesniak unloads a pitch for the eventual Class A champ. (Middle below) Ruben Luna prepares to deliver for Flint Southwestern. (Below) Saranac’s “Cinderella” Class D champion celebrates.
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.)