Richmond Follows Freshman into History
June 18, 2016
By Bill Khan
Special for Second Half
EAST LANSING — The pitching circle is Erin Shuboy's comfort zone.
It doesn't matter if it's an MHSAA championship game against a team with a .433 batting average and a full set of bleachers on either side of her.
Pitching is easy for Shuboy.
Talking about it? That's when the nerves start to show.
"I'm so overwhelmed," the freshman pitcher told a group of reporters after throwing a no-hitter in Richmond's 2-0 victory over Vicksburg in the MHSAA Division 2 championship game on Saturday at Michigan State University.
When one more reporter joined the scrum around Shuboy, she exclaimed, "Oh, my gosh! There's more!"
She'd better get used to the attention, because she has three more years of dealing with interview requests in high school, and possibly beyond that in college.
"She feels like she doesn't have anything to say," said freshman catcher Kennedy Caperton, who has been playing softball with Shuboy since elementary school. "Once you get to know her, she opens up. I think she's just in shock about it."
Shuboy pitched the 14th no-hitter in an MHSAA Final, the first since Mattawan's Lauren Gevaart had one in the 2011 Division 1 title game. Shuboy struck out seven, facing the minimum of 21 batters.
The only runner she allowed was pitching counterpart Avery Slancik, who walked with one out in the second inning. A grounder by Olivia Holmes forced out Slancik's courtesy runner, Lauren Goertler, at second base. Holmes was then caught stealing by Caperton to end the inning.
"As soon as I let go of it, I was like, 'I hope this is good,'" Caperton said.
Shuboy retired the last 16 batters she faced. Even though the scoreboard told the story, she had no clue she'd thrown a no-hitter until a reporter told her while walking from the field to the awards area.
"We had to slow her down several times," Richmond coach Howard Stuart said. "Even the officials were telling us to slow her down. She was in such a hurry to get the ball and throw it. There was no mention of a no-hitter; not one word was said. Even at the end of the game, she didn't know. She was so focused. The team was not allowed to say anything to her."
Richmond's two runs came in the top of the fourth inning. Lindsay Schweiger led off with a single to left, then moved to third when the throw to first went into the outfield on a bunt by Allison Swantek.
Shuboy delivered the first run with a slow groundout to second base.
"I just wanted to make contact with it," Shuboy said. "That's all we had to do, get the RBI."
Swantek made it 2-0 when she raced home on a wild pitch.
"We made a couple of mistakes," Vicksburg coach Paul Gephart said. "Those couple of mistakes all happened together, and that led to the couple of runs."
Vicksburg went down in order in the final five innings, striking out six times, but putting three balls in the outfield. The final out came on a foul ball down the right field line.
"The few solid hits we had went right at them," Gephart said. "One of our quicker girls, they were playing way up to take away the bunt option we've used in the past. You have to give them all the credit. They're a good team. They wouldn't be here if they weren't."
It was Richmond's first MHSAA softball championship after losing in the Finals in 1985, 1998 and 1999. The Blue Devils (32-9) had reached the Semifinals seven times prior to this season under Stuart, who is 954-288 in 38 years at the helm.
Shuboy broke down when asked what it meant to help deliver a title to Richmond's six seniors.
"I just wanted to help them out," she said. "I'm gonna cry. I just wanted them to have a good end of their senior year, and a state championship would be a perfect way."
One of those seniors, Schweiger, knows that the program is in good hands with Shuboy and Caperton returning for three more years as the team's battery.
"Erin handled it so well," Schweiger said. "She could be put in tough situations and play fantastic. Kennedy can throw people out like it's nothing. She's amazing at catching. They work so well together, because they've been playing with each other since they were little; all of us have, basically. They'll be good next year, too."
Slancik allowed six hits, struck out eight and didn't give up a walk for Vicksburg (36-9). She kept the game close by getting out of jams in the fifth and seventh innings after Richmond moved runners to third base.
PHOTOS: (Top) Richmond players rush to celebrate their MHSAA Final win with pitcher Erin Shuboy (19). (Middle) Shuboy prepares to unload a pitch during Saturday’s championship game.
Caledonia Completes Championship Climb
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
June 16, 2018
EAST LANSING – A 2009 Regional Semifinal loss to eventual state champion Hudsonville is the moment Caledonia softball coach Tom Kaechele points to as putting his program on the map.
Sammie Gehrls was in the stands that day, watching her sister Alexa pitch in the 2-1, 14-inning thriller. On Saturday, Sammie helped the Fighting Scots cement their place among the state’s elite, delivering an MHSAA Division 1 championship with a 6-4 win over Hartland at Michigan State University’s Secchia Stadium.
“That definitely set the tone for me,” said Gehrls, now a senior pitcher for the Scots. “I was a little kid, so being able to see her and that experience, I didn’t quite understand everything that was going on, but then she went and played throughout college and I was able to follow in her footsteps and look up to her all these years. She’s definitely one of my biggest supporters, and someone that I look up to very much, and has guided me in a lot of different situations and has taught me a lot.
“To be able to see where the program was at the bottom, and to be able to see what Coach Kaechele has built – these two coaches (assistants Tami Marlow and Jeff VanZytveld) have put in a lot of work and a lot of years. A lot of these girls have played for the same travel team. To see it all connect and be able to reach the ultimate goal is just so surreal.”
The title is the first for Caledonia, which had reached the Final in 2015, losing 5-0 to Warren Regina.
“I am just like in shock right now,” Caledonia junior third baseman Brooklynne Siewertsen said. “I don’t even feel like it’s real. It’s crazy.”
Gehrls picked up the win, striking out three while allowing six hits, four walks and four earned runs. Three of the runs, two of the hits and two of the walks came in the first inning, as Hartland built an early 3-1 lead on the strength of a bases-clearing double by Sam Nagel.
Following that inning, the Eagles found it harder to get things going against Gehrls, who closed the game with two perfect innings, including a pair of strikeouts to finish it out.
“If there’s one weakness Sammie has, it’s that she gets too amped up inside,” Kaechele said. “She’ll come out, and she overthrows. She didn’t have the best grip on the ball, and it was going high on her. The other day we got away with it because (the umpire) had a high strike zone. This guy didn’t have that, so she had to make adjustments within the game.
“Our pitching coach was talking to her all the time about how she had to make those adjustments, and we saw what she did with the adjustments in that last inning.”
The Fighting Scots (29-6) got down early, but a four-run, two-out rally in the third inning proved to be the difference.
“We had some miscues out there. We didn’t play super clean defense,” Hartland coach Bob Greene said. “No matter who you’re playing, that’s tough to come back from.”
It was Gehrls who started the rally with a single. She was the first of five Scots in a row to reach base, with four out of five recording hits, including a triple from Jadon Huyser that drove in a pair of runs and gave her team a 5-3 lead. Siewertsen also drove in a run in the inning, and Gehrls scored the other run on an error.
“Especially during the tournament season, we’ve really been coming through clutch with two outs,” Siewertsen said. “That’s just something that we’re pretty used to right now.”
Caledonia also bookended the game with runs, getting one on an RBI single from Abby Mitchell in the first inning and another on an RBI single from Gehrls in the seventh.
“(The run in the seventh) was huge,” Siewertsen said. “We were only up by one and with only being up one and their hitting, that extra run, that’s a lot of confidence, especially for Sammie pitching, and for us backing her up.”
Mitchell, Gehrls and Huyser all finished with three hits on the day, while Emmalee Hamp had two.
Delaney Robeson had an RBI for Hartland (33-6), driving in a run in the fifth inning. Freshman Rachel Everett took the loss, striking out nine and walking none while allowing 13 hits and two earned runs as Hartland was making its first title game appearance since 1996.
“I think that this team fought hard. We were pretty resilient all year,” Greene said. “Give it up to Caledonia. They fought hard, they put the ball in play a lot, and eventually that was their success.
“Hartland has been very successful in athletics, and this morning we were talking with the athletic director and he said it’s kind of like kids all over the school, no matter what sport, believe that they can get here. I think this is good; this is more proof of that.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Caledonia players celebrate clinching their first MHSAA championship in softball. (Middle) The Fighting Scots’ Abby Mitchell (3) slides into third base ahead of a throw.