Lumen Christi Rallies Late, Watervliet Quickly Comes Back in McLane Openers
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
June 13, 2024
EAST LANSING — Jackson Lumen Christi head coach Phil Clifford said halfway through this season his team adopted a mantra of “Find a way.”
But even this seemed a little extreme.
Lumen Christi was down to its last strike in Thursday’s opening Division 3 Semifinal against Charlevoix, and trailed by two runs.
Over the next handful of minutes, however, Lumen Christi indeed found a way, rallying to earn a 3-2 victory and a trip to Saturday’s championship game where the Titans will attempt to win their first title since 2015.
The home team, Lumen Christi saw No. 8 hitter Timmy Crowley (hit by pitch) and No. 9 hitter Jack Fitzpatrick (single) get on base to start the seventh inning.
Charlevoix starter Bryce Johnson retired the next two batters, but then Lumen Christi junior Brodie Gregory hit a ground ball on a two-strike count that took a hop past the shortstop near second base to score Crowley and make it 2-1.
Lumen Christi then tied the game at 2-2 when junior Kash Kalahar hit a grounder that eluded the third baseman and scored Fitzpatrick.
That brought up freshman Benny Gaston, who hit a grounder in the hole between first and second base to score Gregory and give Lumen Christi what had seemed only moments before an improbable win.
“We’ve had a lot of close games throughout the Catholic League and the state tournament, and they just seem to find a way,” Clifford said. “They never give up, and they always believe they can do it.”
Gaston ended up with the lone RBI of the day for Lumen Christi (30-10).
“I went to bed last night going through every situation in my head,” Gaston said. “Just trying to find a way for my team. Just do anything for my team to win.”
It was the cruelest of defeats for Charlevoix (27-11-1), which was that close to making its first trip to a championship game. Johnson ended up allowing just five hits and no earned runs over 6 2/3 innings.
“That’s part of the game,” Rayders coach Steve Spegl said. “There’s got to be a winner, and there’s got to be a loser. We fought hard for 6 2/3 innings and just had a couple slip through. One of our sayings is that ‘we never lose, but we learn.’ We learned a lot today.”
Charlevoix took a 1-0 lead during the second inning on an RBI double by junior Hunter Lemerand, and then went up 2-0 in the fourth on an RBI single by Johnson.
Charlevoix had the bases loaded with no outs, but Lumen Christi starter Gabe King pitched out of jam without surrendering more runs.
Lumen Christi had runners on first and third with one out in the fourth, but the inning ended on a lineout to third that turned into a double play.
The Titans put the leadoff man on the fifth, but that inning ended on another double play, this time on a flyout to right when the runner took off and couldn’t get back to first in time after the ball was caught.
In the sixth inning, Lumen Christi put their first two batters on base, but a 5-3 double play and a strikeout by Johnson once again got Charlevoix back to the dugout with no damage done.
But those halted rallies ended up not mattering, as Lumen Christi lived up to its mantra and found a way in the seventh.
Watervliet 7, Detroit Edison 2
Watervliet senior pitcher Wyatt Epple probably felt like he was on the ropes in Thursday’s second Division 3 Semifinal. In the bottom of the first inning, Edison took a 1-0 lead on three straight singles – senior Jordan Jones driving in the run – and had two runners on base with nobody out.
“They pounded the ball that first inning,” Epple said. “I didn’t know what the rest was going to look like.”
As it turned out, the rest of the game turned out to be a remarkable recovery.
After pitching out of that first inning jam allowing no further runs, Epple was in control the rest of the way for Watervliet in a 7-2 victory.
Epple allowed no runs and just two hits for 5 2/3 innings after the first before allowing back-to-back singles with two outs in the seventh inning.
By then, the game was all but decided.
“Trusting my fastball I think was the biggest thing,” Epple said. “In the first inning, they were hitting the off-speed pretty well. I trusted the fastball a little more in the next inning and the innings after. It worked.”
Edison head coach Mark Brown lamented the lost opportunity in the first inning.
“I thought in the first inning, we had a really good opportunity to get ahead in the game and put some pressure on them,” he said. “We let them off the hook. As the game progressed, they gained confidence. We didn’t hit the baseball in situations, and they did.”
Watervliet (30-7) advanced to the championship game for the first time in school history.
“Our message the past couple of weeks is to have a loose focus,” Watervliet head coach Josh Tremblay said. “We can’t get uptight or overwhelmed with what is going on. Just have fun and do what we do.”
Watervliet struck for three in the top of the third inning, first tying the game at 1-1 on an RBI double down the left-field line by junior Owen Epple. The Panthers took a 2-1 lead on an RBI sacrifice fly by senior Alex Hicks, and then went up 3-1 on an RBI double by sophomore Caleb Jewell.
Edison loaded the bases with two outs in the fourth inning, but Epple induced a flyout to end the threat. Watervliet then loaded the bases with nobody out in the fifth and took a 4-1 lead on a sacrifice fly by Hicks. Jewell plated another on an RBI single to left to make it 5-1 Panthers.
The Panthers added insurance during the seventh inning on a third RBI sacrifice fly by Hicks that made it 6-1. Epple scored on a wild pitch to make it 7-1 Panthers.
Edison (25-12) added a run in the seventh on another RBI single by Jones.
PHOTOS (Top) Lumen Christi’s Benny Gaston smashes the game-winning hit during the seventh inning of Thursday’s first Division 3 Semifinal. (Middle) Watervliet’s Owen Epple (5) and Edison catcher Zaire Clement follow the ball during their Semifinal.
Century-Old Postcard Inspires Researcher to Tell Story of Athens Baseball Dynasty
By
Ron Pesch
MHSAA historian
June 25, 2026
Shortly after graduation from little Athens High School in 1969, Larry DeBow had the chance to head east for a three-day music festival. Held that August on a dairy farm in upstate New York, Woodstock attracted some 400,000 and became one of the most famous cultural moments of the 1960s.
“I didn’t know what it was and blew it off,” he recalled. “I’ve always regretted that.”
That fall, DeBow left the Calhoun County village south of Battle Creek and made his way to Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. There, he crammed four years of education into three, then, starting in Tecumseh, began a 41-year career in industrial sales with various companies and bounced around the world.
He retired in 2013, took up photography, and started a small business.
“In 2016 I added video when a friend and I decided to take a just-you-and-I road trip,” said DeBow, capsulating life’s path. Their destinations: Woodstock and the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“We were at Woodstock, and my friend Dave – he always talked like this – said ‘Dude, we gotta make a movie about this.’ So, I just started to snap pictures, and I used my iPhone taking video. Then I got home and go, ‘What am I going to do with this? I don’t know how to make a video.’ But on my computer was Movie Maker 7. I created my first video … I think it (runs) only about 10 minutes.”
After producing about 15 more videos, he found Movie Maker couldn’t keep up with his growing technology needs. Now tinkering with AI tools, DeBow is preparing to debut his latest work – a baseball documentary – in July.
Subject Matter
Following the road trip, DeBow experimented with technology and posted short films to YouTube. In 2017, at the suggestion of another Athens graduate, John Royer, they started assembling material for 1969 – A Celebration of Accomplishment, a documentary initially shared at Larry’s 50th class reunion. The Indians had fielded two pretty good sports teams during DeBow’s senior year.
“John was a year behind me (in high school). He was on the track team … and was (one) of the four guys who still hold the mile relay record for the school. I was on the basketball team, although I was the 12th man,” recalled DeBow, laughing. “I was far from a star. We were the first team to win a Regional game in school history that winter. In the spring, the track team took second in the state Finals.”
Running 26 minutes in length, the finished video included interviews, snapshots, memorabilia, and some old family 8mm film footage from the state track meet.
DeBow followed the production up with another documentary on the Athens’ 2022 girls volleyball team, runner-up in Class D in the annual MHSAA tournament. While digging around on that project, he came across a real picture postcard. It would set the stage for the current project.
A Baseball Dynasty
The image features members of a team riding on a horse-drawn wagon. Inscribed is, “Athens High School State Champions, 1910, Base Ball Team.”
“Tom Doubleday doesn’t like the title,” states DeBow. “I give it to him anyway. He’s like the curator of the sports section at the Athens Area Historical Society. He asked, ‘Can we do something with this (to tell their story).’ “
DeBow immediately recognized the challenge. “If this is all we’ve got, I can’t do anything with that.”
With Doubleday’s assistance they dug into the Society’s archives. The story grew. Intrigued, DeBow was quickly hooked. But this one would highlight the challenges and requirements needed to tell a story cast over 100 years ago.
Sharing stories
For roughly 30 of the 45 years that I’ve delved into the history of high school sports, the vast majority of time was spent perched on a chair in a library, mostly in Michigan, occasionally somewhere in the Midwest, scrolling through the pages of microfilmed reels of newspapers and periodicals or scanning old school yearbooks, searching for data.
That frequently included trips from Muskegon to the State of Michigan Library in Lansing, where a warehouse of nearly pristine reels of microfilm is maintained for a majority of the state’s newspapers. Over the last 15 years, dramatic changes have allowed searchable scans of the nation’s newsprint to be moved online. Initially, it was a handful of smaller long-defunct publications. Today, the archives of most of the state’s largest dailies are now included in subscription databases, and the listings continue to grow.
One of the great joys of serving as the MHSAA historian is sharing knowledge and resources with sportswriters, coaches, players, school administrators – past and present. Often, individuals reach out, looking for information and guidance on projects on which they are working. Occasionally, we strike up friendships, mostly via telephone calls and email, where we each cheer on each other’s projects and share news of our successes and challenges. Sometimes we meet in person.
In February 2024, I received my first email from DeBow. With the subject line, “Athens Michigan HS 1907 thru 1918 Perhaps a Michigan Baseball Dynasty?”
Come July, I will meet Larry in Athens.
A Cutout
Tapping into the collection of the Athens Area Historical Society, they found additional postcards and artifacts that would visually expand the lost tale from the early days of prep baseball, featuring an interesting cast of characters.
“They found some posters or bills saying Athens was playing North Adams, or Athens was playing Marshall or Athens is playing somebody,” recalled DeBow. “These would be displayed in store windows. There was a poster for (a) 1909 (championship) game with Mt. Pleasant. I don’t know where they found it … but it was literally cut off a wall. None of us had really noticed it before in the historical society. It could have slapped you right in the face because it was right on the side of a doorway going from one section (of the building) to another. I’ve got a lot of that stuff in the documentary.”
Hitting the internet with searches on high school baseball from the era, DeBow came across a list prepared by Kevin Askeland, a staff writer at MaxPreps.
Using research from multiple sources, MaxPreps has retroactively chosen national champions back to 1910, designed to recognize a single champion for each year. The compiled list is a consolidation of previous work produced over the years by various organizations and historians, according to Askeland. MaxPreps credits those individuals and expands on their work via research using modern day access to online newspaper databases that now allow deeper dives into the scanned recorded print history of cities, towns, and villages, with tools previously unavailable.
DeBow asked Askeland if the list was malleable. Askeland said it could happen but would require documentation and detail that strongly made a case for a change.
Contact
DeBow’s conversation with Askeland added a new dimension to his research and led to our connection.
Shortly after his email, we spoke on the phone. At the time, DeBow’s initial newspaper research was limited to the Athens Times microfilm stored at Lansing’s State Library. Purchasing database subscriptions allowed DeBow to conduct research on the first two decades of the century behind a laptop without the road trip. He keyed in countless combinations of words and phrases in search of clues. Before long, he was waist-deep in a long-forgotten and expanding story. Hours flew by. By June of 2025, he had a strong outline, focused on the 10-year span 1907-1916.
By August 2025, DeBow estimated he had viewed approximately 500 individual articles. Larger newspapers from nearby Battle Creek and Marshall included scores from games. Kalamazoo, Saginaw, and Detroit papers provided additional hints. The Times provided much of the color and detail.
Certain questions hovered above his research. Claims over eligibility of certain players often surfaced in newspaper game coverage. What were governing rules during those days? How did playing “summer ball” affect eligibility? Were there age rules?
Without question, baseball was the “national pastime” during the era. Reports of games in the state of Michigan appear in print as early as 1860. Old Reach and Spalding Baseball Guides help explain the hierarchy, structure, and importance of the sport in these years as foundry, city, independent, and semi-professional minor league teams dominated the landscape in many cities and towns.
The teams competed for talent. The game was popular in high schools, but certainly not sponsored by all schools. Initially governed by a subcommittee of the Michigan State Teachers’ Association, and then from 1909 through 1924 by the Michigan Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA) – both predecessors to the MHSAA – prep athletics at member schools voluntarily cooperated with regulations of eligibility pertaining to amateurism, enrollment, semesters of athletic competition, and school scholarship.
DeBow mentioned he had come across articles that spoke of state champions in track and field, football, basketball, tennis, and summer independent baseball … even MARBLES. But there was no mention of an official “state high school baseball champion” for the years he studied.
Outside of track & field championships, the MIAA did not sponsor postseason tournaments. Hence, all other titles claimed by schools in other sports were generally made by the press, school administration, and/or admiring followers, justified by outstanding results in the win-loss column. That led to challenges from other schools elsewhere in the state making similar claims, and often contests between the schools were arranged, meant to resolve the debate.
Utilizing modern tools, DeBow collected schedules and final results, and compiled folders full of detail. Slowly, he distilled data into a narrative covering forgotten games and players who represented Athens, and the opponents that they faced. His focus narrowed to a remarkable four-year span – 1909 through 1912 – where the Indians compiled a stunning 42-0 record. Before stellar crowds they triumphed over bigger schools including Dexter, Millington, Mount Pleasant, Battle Creek and Saginaw Arthur Hill.
In September 2025, DeBow penned an e-mail to Askeland, detailing the Athens seasons in a 51-page document. The 1909 team finished 12-0 after defeating Mount Pleasant, 1-0, in a title game at Athens, while 1910’s squad downed Arthur Hill in Saginaw in another 1-0 championship contest, to finish 11-0. Both teams featured the Fox brothers – Loyd, pitcher/outfielder, and Roy, catcher – perhaps the team’s top players. As a sophomore in 1910, Loyd struck out 16 in the title game – the first loss in three years for Arthur Hill.
So, DeBow pitched the 1910 squad to Askeland for consideration as a replacement to 9-1 Commercial High of Brooklyn, N.Y. as the list’s new national champion. Impressed with Athens’ accomplishments, this past February, MaxPreps updated its list accordingly.
Thrilled by the news, since then DeBow’s focus has been on final details to wrap up the documentary in preparation for release. Among the tools he’s used on this one is some limited AI.
He will bring the story to life with a public showing of the documentary at the village of Athens’ annual Homecoming, scheduled for July 24th – 26th.
After, DeBow plans to submit the story to a film festival. “My goal has been to keep this under 30 minutes,” he said.
Now that he’s near the end, he’s given up pretty much all the software subscriptions he’s used on the project – except one.
“I’m probably going to convince myself to keep Chat GPT,” DeBow noted, “just because I’m having too much fun doing other stuff!”
PHOTOS (Top) The 1910 Athens baseball team poses for a photo celebrating its championship season. (2) The 1910 team is welcomed during a parade through its hometown. (3) A sign advertises a matchup with Lansing that season. (4) Brothers Roy and Loyd Fox pose for a photo together in 1911. (Team photo courtesy of the David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. All others were gathered by Larry DeBow and the Athens Area Historical Society.)