D3 Baseball Final: Ventures Victorious Again

June 16, 2012

BATTLE CREEK – Brett Sunde’s only official at bat of the Division 3 Final on Saturday came in the first inning.

But with one swing, Madison Heights Bishop Foley’s senior catcher got his team rolling on its second straight MHSAA championship.

The Western Michigan University signee and Oakland Athletics draft pick hit a two-run homer to give the Ventures an early lead, and scored again in the third inning after being hit by a pitch. He also walked twice and scored three runs total.

Senior centerfielder Luke Ortel also scored three runs and had three hits, and sophomore shortstop Garrett Schilling had two hits and two RBI as top-ranked Bishop Foley (38-3) added two runs in the third inning and four more in the sixth.

Lansing Catholic (31-7), unranked at the start of the tournament, got six hits from six batters. Junior Dillon Rush drove in the lone run, and also pitched the first five innings and the start of the sixth for the Cougars.

Senior Brian Bayliss got the win for Bishop Foley with eight strikeouts over seven innings. Click for a full box score.

PHOTO: Bishop Foley hitters share a congratulatory fist bump after one of their eight runs in Saturday’s Division 3 Final.

'One more reason why baseball is awesome'

May 26, 2016

The Maple City Glen Lake and Bellaire baseball teams found themselves confined to their dugouts Wednesday afternoon as rain clouded an otherwise typical late-spring doubleheader. 

Typically "awesome," that is. 

The following came from Glen Lake coach Kris Herman explaining another reason "why baseball is awesome." We'd contend fun stories like this say a lot about not only baseball, but high school sports as a whole. 

The teams were restricted to their dugouts by rain and thunder for 45 minutes when ...

" ... our guys decided to sing “International Harvester” at the top of their lungs while the Bellaire players just looked at us like deer in headlights, but they were smiling. We proceeded to play euchre (baseball players must always carry cards … it’s an unwritten rule in baseball culture), and then we heard a Bellaire player yell “heads up” as a ball bounced into our dugout. On the ball was a tic-tac-toe board and a written message that said, 'You First.'

"The whole team gathered around the ball to argue about strategy, and when we threw the ball back, their whole team did the same thing. It was absolutely hilarious. A ball being thrown back and forth through a rain delay, one team huddling around the ball when they had it and arguing about what they were going to do, the other team staring at them likes seals waiting for a fish." 

The two teams were starting up a different game when the delay ended.

"Good stuff …THAT’S the kind of thing that people don’t usually hear about that makes baseball awesome."