Balanced, Gritty Lamphere Back Among Baseball's Best
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
May 27, 2021
Two walk-off home runs defined the success of the Madison Heights Lamphere baseball team’s regular-season championship run this spring.
The next two games will determine the success of the Rams’ postseason.
Lamphere – 22-3 and ranked No. 7 in Division 2 this week – is in the midst of one of the program’s best seasons, as the Rams captured the Macomb Area Conference Gold title outright posting a 13-2 mark. On May 19, Lamphere faced St. Clair Shores Lakeview in the last division game of the season. If Lakeview had won, it would have created a shared title with Lamphere (the teams also shared in 2019). But with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning, Nick Krstich, a junior catcher-third baseman, hit the first pitch he saw for a home run to give Lamphere a 4-3 victory and the outright championship.
“It was probably the greatest moment in my baseball life, and I’ve been playing since I was 8 (years old),” Krstich said. “It took me a few steps to realize it was out. All game they were starting me off with a curveball. They brought in a new guy. He threw a fastball, and it was in my happy zone. As I came around third, all the guys were waiting for me and they all jumped on me as I crossed the plate.”
Rewind another month to April 23, shortly before the start of the league season, when Lamphere played traditional power Detroit Country Day. In a wild affair, junior Aiden McGinnis, a spot starting pitcher who works mainly in relief, came to bat in the bottom of the seventh inning with the score tied at 13-13. McGinnis sent an 0-1 pitch over the left field fence for a 14-13 victory.
“That got us going in the right direction,” Lamphere coach Adam Wooley said. “That was cool. It showed we could play with anybody.”
Wooley is in his 20th season as the program’s head varsity coach and his teams, for the most part, have been competitive. His best were headed by players like Greg Fettes, Ryan Horvath and others a decade ago. In 2010, Lamphere reached the MHSAA Division 2 Regional Finals before losing to eventual champion Dearborn Divine Child. The next season expectations were greater with the return of Fettes and Horvath, but Lamphere lost to Country Day in District play.
Full, clear video of @NickKrstich walk off HR to clinch outright MAC Gold title on Thursday for @LHShardball @statechampsmich please feel free to repost. pic.twitter.com/sQEQWQsbqs
— Lamphere Baseball (@LHShardball) May 22, 2021
“We had seven players who went on to play in college from those teams,” Wooley said. “We have five on this team. We won Districts in 2012 and 2014, and again in 2019. It probably sounds worn out, but I thought we’d be good this year. We had eight starters back (from two years ago) and they had had success. They were anticipating getting back together.
“I’m a lot different coach than I was 10 years ago. I was like a Kirk Gibson then, intense. Now I’m more like a Miguel Cabrera, more laid back.”
Wooley has 16 on his varsity roster, including nine seniors. There are no superstars – just a bunch of good players who pull for each other and have played a lot of baseball together over the years.
Wooley said he and his program hit a downturn for a few years following the 2014 season. Coaching had become a drudgery, not something Wooley looked forward to after teaching class (at Lamphere). Simply put, he got stale.
“I questioned myself,” he said. “It was getting to the point where I was getting frustrated. Then in 2017, I went to an aspiring principal program, as part of my wanting to become an administrator. I had a chance to look at myself. It made me look at my core values. Core values? What are they? I needed to change.”
Wooley redefined his role as a coach. He built his new approach on what he calls the three pillars of his program – trust, commitment and grit.
“The mantra is family,” he said. “We give up so much to be a part of this. You have to understand that we are working toward the same goal. That grit piece? I’m from Madison Heights. No one has succeeded in this town without hard work.”
After last season was cancelled due to COVID-19, Wooley knew there would be a transition period so he intentionally started the season late (April 9) to give his players time to get back to basics. And he’s convinced that extra time spent practicing paid off.
Lamphere’s strengths are hitting, one through nine in the order, and pitching. The players are patient at the plate, and they’re not afraid to fail.
One of Lamphere’s top players is Jake Malak, a pitcher-catcher-outfielder, who will play at St. Clair Community College next season. Malak is batting over .400 and is 4-0 as the team’s No. 2 starter.
The third starter is Dylan Chargo, who’s 3-0 with an ERA below 2.50. He’s batting .350 with 10 extra-base hits.
Defensively, Lamphere makes the routine plays. K.J. Whitman covers a lot of ground in center field, and shortstop Noah Hurst earned the nickname “dirtball” because he’s always diving for ground balls and dirtying his uniform.
And Wooley has the luxury of rotating three catchers on a weekly basis – Chargo, Malak and Krstich.
Malak is one of the leaders and, like Krstich, was a starter on the football team. Malak comes from a family of catchers. His father, Ricky Malak, was a catcher at Madison High. His grandfather, Ronald Malak, also caught and his cousin Billy Malak was a catcher-third baseman on the Madison Heights Bishop Foley teams that claimed a Finals three-peat with Division 3 titles in 2011, 2012 and 2013.
“I love catching,” Jake Malak said. “I like being the leader on the field. I honestly love everything about it. You’re always doing something.”
To stay on top of his game during the cancelled 2020 season, Malak continued to do “something.” He worked with his father one-on-one on catching drills and hitting. Malak also joined a health club nearby to maintain his conditioning.
On Tuesday, Lamphere will play Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood in a Division 2 District opener at Orchard Lake St. Mary’s. Cranbrook handed Lamphere its only nonconference loss, 9-4. The winner will play Country Day on June 5 in a District Semifinal. Should Lamphere win, the Rams will likely play the host team, top-ranked St. Mary’s, for the championship that same afternoon.
It’s a daunting task but one the Rams have been preparing for since the start of the season. And should they reach the District Final and play St. Mary’s which, by virtue of its title in 2019, is the reigning Division 2 champion, Lamphere would be a decided underdog.
So be it.
“Hey, it’s baseball,” Krstich said. “Anything can happen.”
Tom Markowski is a correspondent for the State Champs! Sports Network and previously directed its web coverage. He also covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Aiden McGinnis (22) and his Lamphere teammates have had plenty to smile about this spring. (Middle) KJ Whitman makes his move toward the plate Friday against Madison Heights Bishop Foley. (Photos courtesy of Allison Minowa and the Lamphere baseball program.)
Latest Scheurer Earns Place in St Pat's Fame
May 17, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
PORTLAND – Hopefully Brandon Scheurer always remembers his most thrilling five minutes in high school baseball like they were five minutes ago.
Two years ago, just a sophomore but already playing shortstop for the second time in a Division 4 championship game, Scheurer awaited the ground ball that could clinch Portland St. Patrick’s first MHSAA Finals title.
“There was a runner on first, two outs, and I got hit a ground ball right at me. I'm not going to lie; (I was) a little nervous there and I kinda came up on it a little bit, almost booted it, but I got it in my glove, flipped it to our second baseman and he got the force out at second for the last out,” Scheurer recalled this week. “Honestly, after that it was like blacking out a little bit. I heard the cheers and the roar after we got that last out. We all went and jumped on each other, and after coming out of the pile and kinda coming back down to Earth a little bit I saw my dad and just went over and gave him a huge hug and then saw my Uncle Bryan and gave him a huge hug.
“He's like, all that, everything we’ve done, has been working towards this moment right here.”
Brandon Scheurer wants to enjoy that moment one more time.
Sports, St. Pat’s and Scheurers have been synonymous for three decades. And Brandon, the second-oldest of this next generation of Scheurer Shamrocks present and future, has more than propped up the family tradition.
Scheurer is finishing his fourth varsity season manning shortstop for what is again the top-ranked team in Division 4, and is signed to continue his career at Saginaw Valley State University. Uncle Bryan is in his 15th season as varsity baseball coach, and the team has won nearly 75 percent of its games under his leadership. Dad Mark is Bryan’s forever assistant, plus just stepped down after 19 years coaching basketball including the last 12 guiding St. Patrick’s boys varsity.
Mark Scheurer won nine letters at St. Patrick before graduating in 1989, then walked on at Central Michigan University and played himself into three seasons as a starter. Bryan also was a three-sport standout graduating from St. Patrick in 1996, played on a national championship baseball team at Grand Rapids Community College in 1997 and then starred at CMU while becoming an Academic All-American in 2001.
The family athleticism extends farther than dad and uncle. Brandon’s mother Jill was a gymnast at CMU. Cousin Dylan Carroll played football at Grand Valley State and recently signed a free agent contract with the Chicago Bears. Cousin Chase Fitzsimmons is the Shamrocks’ catcher, and cousin Nathan Lehnert a top pitcher. Both of Brandon’s younger sisters are three-sport athletes. The lone older cousin, Mallory (whose dad Jeff is Mark and Bryan's older brother), was a three-sport athlete at St. Patrick and graduated a year ago.
“I hoped he’d never have that pressure, but some comes with (the name),” Bryan Scheurer said. “But he’s a better high school player than Mark or I were. Mark was just OK, I had more over-the-fence power, but I didn’t have the arm (Brandon) has in high school.
“He’s just a coach on field, just a complete player with all the things he can do to help us win.”
Brandon, like Bryan, was a quarterback growing up but stopped the sport after a broken left femur suffered on a tackle in eighth grade led to three months in a cast with 8-inch pins holding things together. Instead, Brandon spent one fall season as a sophomore running cross country, and all four winters with Dad on the varsity basketball team. Brandon scored more than 1,000 points with an MHSAA record book-qualifying 201 3-pointers over 81 games.
On the diamond, he's a two time all-stater and academic all-stater. This spring, heading into Thursday’s doubleheader against Fulton, Brandon was hitting .569 with 12 doubles, three triples and 29 RBI while leading off, plus had stolen 23 bases. He’d also struck out 43 with just four walks in 21 1/3 innings pitched, and hadn’t given up an earned run mostly serving as the team’s closer.
He’s been around sports since before he could walk. Mark used to hire a student to watch Brandon in his car seat as an infant during basketball practices, and Brandon has been every kind of ball boy and had his dad and/or uncle as coaches in everything going back to at least seventh grade.
A son of two teachers, academic prowess also doesn’t fall far from the tree. Scheurer is ranked second in his graduating class with a GPA over 4.0 and will study mechanical engineering at SVSU. He was a finalist this winter for an MHSAA/Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Award, given to only 32 seniors statewide.
“We’ve always told him lead your own life, lead your own path, and you’ll be judged accordingly,” Mark Scheurer said. “He’s always been driven by numbers, by academics, wanting to be the best.
“For me and for Jill, it’s just been an awesome ride watching him and being able to be a part of it as a dad and as a coach. People ask me about the stress of it, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Brandon’s Scholar-Athlete application essay focused on how Mark taught him at a young age to win with humility and lose with grace, and Brandon said he’s learned most from his dad and uncle how to be a leader and what leadership really means. “There's a lot of things that go into it,” Scheurer said. “The leader isn't just the guy that leads stretches and the guy that's the captain of the team. From the worst guy on your team to the best guy on your team, you have to know how to address every single person and what everybody needs to hear.”
With St. Patrick also finishing Division 4 runner-up his freshman season, and then going 20-8 a year ago before falling in its District, few players in the state have enjoyed as much success or experienced as much at tournament time.
The seeds were planted early, but Brandon especially remembers when he and Bryan – his confirmation sponsor – watched “Remember the Titans” together as part of Brandon’s prep. They were supposed to find and discuss aspects of faith in the movie. They both also remember watching the ending when T.C. Williams High School wins a Virginia state championship, and discussing how it would feel to be part of something like that together.
A few months later, they experienced it themselves at McLane Baseball Stadium.
With some star power plus the deepest bench and pitching since Bryan Scheurer has been coach, they are on track to give it another shot. St. Patrick is 23-1 and opens play Monday in the Capital Diamond Classic against Division 2 DeWitt, before facing Division 3 top-ranked Pewamo-Westphalia for the Central Michigan Athletic Conference championship next Friday. Both should serve as valuable preparation for a run at Division 4.
“I think it's a good start; I don't want to say it's over yet,” Brandon Scheurer said. “This is definitely a good start to the kind of year we wanted to have, especially after last year. (Finishing) 20-8 for a lot of teams is really good – it's a great year. But for how we played the two years before that, 34 wins back to back years, it's just kinda how we got used to playing.
“We want to try to make that run into June again. That's a goal this team has and that I have personally – I want to get back there. I want to try to win another state championship, because that was one of the coolest things that's ever happened. Especially seeing my dad and uncle afterward, the hugs we gave each other, that's something since I've been really little that we've always worked for and tried to work towards.
“They came really close, and to actually get them that was awesome. But I'd love to do it again.”
Geoff Kimmerly joined the MHSAA as its Media & Content Coordinator in Sept. 2011 after 12 years as Prep Sports Editor of the Lansing State Journal. He has served as Editor of Second Half since its creation in Jan. 2012. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Barry, Eaton, Ingham, Livingston, Ionia, Clinton, Shiawassee, Gratiot, Isabella, Clare and Montcalm counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Brandon Scheurer in 2017 picks up the grounder that led to the final out of the Division 4 championship game. (Middle) Scheurer, with his parents and sisters, celebrates reaching the 1,000-point milestone this past basketball season.