Detroit Catholic Central Baseball Seniors Put Stamp on School's Success
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
June 13, 2026
EAST LANSING — Throughout their entire high school tenure at Detroit Catholic Central, you couldn’t blame the seniors on the school’s baseball team for looking around at all the Finals championships won by other Shamrocks programs and wondering, “When will it be our turn?”
“A lot of fans and outsiders doubted us and we were like, ‘This year is going to be OUR year,’” Catholic Central senior Bennett Thompson said. “We’re going to buy in. Everyone’s going to give it their all. We’re such a senior-led team. We knew it was our season this year.”
Indeed it was.
For the first time since 1999, the Shamrocks won a Finals championship in baseball, earning a 7-0 win over Rochester Adams in the Division 1 title game at Michigan State’s McLane Stadium.
Catholic Central rode an offense that reached the record books and brilliant pitching from senior Mikey Laser to glory.
The offense broke the championship game record for most triples, hammering five of them, four during the first two innings.
That was more than enough offense for Laser, the team’s No. 2 pitcher, whose plans for the future do not include playing college baseball, but attending Michigan State as a student only.
Laser was masterful, allowing just four hits in his shutout.
“I’ve got 18 guys going to (play baseball in) college, and we threw the one guy out there that’s just going to college to be a student,” Catholic Central head coach Ryan Rogowski said. “What a pitcher he is and what an outstanding job.”
For Adams, it was more championship game heartbreak 30 years after it last made an appearance.
Adams lost in the 1995 and 1996 Class A Finals, and those teams also were coached by this year’s leader, Andy Lamkin.
In his second stint as the head coach of the Highlanders, Lamkin led them back to the biggest stage.
“We haven’t done that all year long,” Lamkin said of his team getting just four hits. “You’ve got to give him a lot of credit. He pitched fast. When we did hit the ball hard, it was at people. They outhit us. They took it to us at the beginning, and nobody has done that to us this year.”
The seeds for Catholic Central’s tournament run were sown during the Catholic League tournament, when the Shamrocks lost a semifinal on its home field to Warren De La Salle Collegiate.
Motivated by that defeat, Catholic Central made sure it wouldn’t lose again in the MHSAA Tournament, punctuated by a terrific performance in the championship.
Thompson set the tone right off the bat, hitting the first pitch of the game into the left-center gap for a triple. He scored when senior Dylan Fairchild did the same thing, hitting a triple to the gap in left-center to put Catholic Central up 1-0. The Shamrocks went up 2-0 on an RBI groundout by senior Nicholas Garnick.
In the second inning, Fairchild came up with two outs and two on and hit another laser into the left-center gap, a two-run triple that gave Catholic Central a 4-0 lead.
In the fifth inning, Thompson led with his second triple of the game and the team’s fifth, and then scored on a wild pitch to make it 5-0. Cam Swearingen followed that up with an RBI single to put the Shamrocks up 6-0.
They went up 7-0 in the seventh inning on an RBI sacrifice fly by junior Jaxon Gatt.
PHOTOS (Top) Detroit Catholic Central players celebrate after clinching the Division 1 title Saturday at McLane Stadium. (Middle) The Shamrocks’ Kyle Davis (19) throws to first base while Adams’ Matt Toeppner attempts to advance.
Rochester Adams, Detroit Catholic Central Set Matchup for 2026 Season Finale
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
June 12, 2026
EAST LANSING — Thirty years after leaving Battle Creek following the second of two straight state championship game losses, Rochester Adams head baseball coach Andy Lamkin was back at the MHSAA Semifinals on Friday with his team.
The head coach of those teams that lost in Class A championship games in 1995 and 1996, Lamkin is in his second stint as Adams head coach (he took the program back over in 2024) and probably experienced some full-circle emotions entering Friday’s Division 1 Semifinal against Brownstown Woodhaven.
“It’s a different perspective this time, I’ll definitely let you know that,” Lamkin said. “It’s good that other people have an opportunity to share what I was able to feel 30 years ago. To me, that’s what I’m reflecting on, is everybody else and the parents and the kids that have this opportunity.”
On Saturday, Adams will get an opportunity to achieve what the 1995 and 1996 teams did not – win the school’s first baseball title.
The Highlanders earned that opportunity with a 10-4 win over Woodhaven, after jumping out to a 7-0 lead and not looking back. They will face Detroit Catholic Central at 5 p.m. Saturday in the Division 1 Final, which will close the 2026 baseball season.
Adams had a big inning early, producing a five-run rally in the second. Senior Rino Watters gave the Highlanders a 1-0 lead on an RBI single following a double by senior catcher McCallister Doelle, and then with the bases loaded, senior Dominic Dumitrescu cleared them with a double to make it 4-0.
Senior Matt Toeppner then followed with an RBI single to center to give Adams a 5-0 lead.
The Highlanders added two more runs in the third inning on RBI singles by senior Johnny Safadi and Dumitrescu to grab a 7-0 lead.
Dumitrescu, the team’s No. 9 hitter, had four RBI and Safadi had four hits to lead a 15-hit attack.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had four RBI,” Dumitrescu said.
Woodhaven got on the board in the fourth inning on an RBI single by junior Amauri Gutierrez after a triple by sophomore Tristan Spencer.
Adams got that run back in the fifth, but Woodhaven scored two runs with two outs in the bottom of the inning, cutting the Adams lead to 8-3 on RBI singles by Gutierrez and Spencer.
In the sixth inning, Adams took a 9-3 lead on an RBI sacrifice fly by Doelle, and then Adams went up 10-3 in the seventh on an RBI sacrifice fly by Toeppner.
The Highlanders have two players, Andrew Wozniak and Quinn DeCourcy, whose dads were on the 1995 team that lost in the title game. Now, their sons will get a chance to earn what eluded them.
“Now we’re back carrying on the legacy,” Wozniak said.
Gutierrez had two hits and two RBI in defeat for the Warriors (34-6-1).
“We started chipping way a little bit,” Woodhaven head coach Corey Farner said. “The problem was we couldn’t slow them down. At the end of the day, you can’t win when you give up 15 hits.”
Detroit Catholic Central 6, Mattawan 1
Ever since October, Catholic Central head coach Ryan Rogowski said there has been one date his team constantly talked about.
“June 13,” Rogowski said, referring to the date of Saturday’s Division 1 championship game.
Catholic Central will indeed get to play on the last day of the season.
“There are 16 seniors who are just incredible,” Rogowski said. “We have one game left. They have worked so hard for this.”
The biggest reason Catholic Central (28-12) earned a chance at winning its first Finals championship since 1999 was senior left-hander Andrew Mahoney, a Cincinnati signee.
Mahoney tossed a three-hitter against Mattawan, allowing one run and striking out 15 batters.
Catholic Central also had an efficient offense, putting together an 11-hit attack led by a three-hit performance by senior Nick Garnick.
“I was just ready to do damage and ready to attack,” Garnick said.
Catholic Central took a 1-0 lead in the second inning when Garnick scored from second base on a wild pitch.
In the fifth, the Shamrocks gained separation, scoring five times to take a 6-0 lead. Catholic Central took a 2-0 lead on an RBI single to center by junior Kyle Davis, went up 3-0 when Davis scored from third on a balk, and grabbed a 4-0 lead on an RBI single by Garnick.
Sophomore Luke Fairchild then lined a two-run double over the center fielder’s head to make it 6-0.
Mattawan did have an immediate response, scoring a run in the bottom of the fifth inning on a wild pitch and putting runners on first and third with one out.
But the Shamrocks got out of the jam with no further damage to hold on to a 6-1 lead.
Mattawan (29-9) was making its second Semifinal appearance in four years, but just couldn’t make enough contact against Mahoney to advance to what would have been its first championship game.
“You’re not going to win many games when you strike out 15 out of 21 outs,” Mattawan head coach Brett Vaughn said. “He threw really well. We scouted the (heck) out of him and knew that was what we were going to get. Our approaches to the plate weren’t very good and again, striking out 15 out of 21 outs isn’t going to win you a lot of games.”
PHOTOS (Top) Rochester Adams players celebrate after crossing the plate during Friday’s Semifinal win over Brownstown Woodhaven. (Middle) The Shamrocks’ Cam Swearingen (4) follows a drive against Mattawan.