St Mary's Completes Championship Climb
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
June 15, 2019
EAST LANSING – By the time the final weekend of the baseball season came around, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s was a juggernaut.
The young but incredibly talented Eaglets showed that by defeating their final two opponents by a combined score of 18-1, including an 8-1 victory Saturday against Grand Rapids Catholic Central in the MHSAA Division 2 Final at McLane Stadium.
But after a 7-9 start to the season, what seemed inevitable by the end looked far from certain.
“That Ohio trip (on spring break), we really just kind of bonded closer,” St. Mary’s sophomore second baseman Alex Mooney said. “We said, ‘Enough is enough, we’re not losing anymore,’ and that’s actually what we did – we haven’t lost since. You see all the talent, you see all the (college) commitments and stuff, and it’s like, ‘Why aren’t we winning?’ Then it finally just clicked, and everything just came together.”
St. Mary’s (34-9-2) finished the season 27-0-2 over its final 29 games to claim the fourth Finals title in school history, and first since 2015.
"It’s good putting it all together,” Eaglets coach Matt Petry said. “At the beginning of the year while we were struggling, we would get good pitching and we wouldn’t swing. Or we would swing and we wouldn’t get good pitching. For the last two months, we’ve kind of put it all together and we’ve won every type of game possible, and the guys were just really confident coming into this weekend.”
That confidence was evident Saturday, as the Eaglets were always in control against the Cougars thanks to strong hitting and a stellar pitching performance from freshman starter Brock Porter. In six innings of work, Porter struck out seven while allowing five hits, three walks and one run.
“I definitely have confidence in Brock,” Mooney said. “He’s no normal freshman, so I don’t think the stage ever gets too big for him. He’s going to be a stud.”
Senior Dillon Kark closed the game, allowing one hit before forcing a double play ball to end the seventh inning.
Petry said he had complete confidence in Porter, despite his age, but he also knew he had the full strength of his deep pitching staff at the ready thanks to a complete-game outing from Thursday’s starter Logan Wood.
“Brock has thrown great for us,” Petry said. “That was his first start in the playoffs, but he had three wins prior to today in relief. We really couldn’t make a bad decision, whether we wanted to start Brock or Anthony Fett or Mikey Gall, we were confident in all those guys, but we went with Brock. It started with Logan Wood on Thursday going a complete, that way we had the whole rest of our staff available. Some very talented guys and guys with experience. After Brock we had Dillon Kark closing it out, which was very valuable.”
St. Mary’s bats wasted little time getting going, as they scored two runs in each of the first three innings to jump out to a 6-0 lead.
Senior catcher Harrison Poeszat opened the scoring with an RBI single, and Kameron Arnold, who came in to run for him, made it 2-0 with some heads-up play. After he stole second, the throw went into the outfield and Arnold took advantage of the confusion to run home.
Mooney drove in a pair of runs with a single in the second inning, and the Eaglets added two more runs on an error in the third.
Catholic Central (27-11) got on the board in the fifth inning with a sacrifice fly from Kyle Tepper that drove in Nate Trudeau.
Jack Mooney put St. Mary’s up 7-1 in the bottom of the fifth inning with a sacrifice that scored Grant Henson, and an RBI triple from Nolan Schubart in the bottom of the sixth closed out the scoring.
“We looked at their lineup before we played and we saw that the bottom of their order, 7-8-9, were seniors,” Catholic Central coach Tim MacKinnon said. “When you have seniors hitting 7, 8 and 9, you have a pretty decent ballclub, and we knew that. We had seen them play Thursday, and we knew that they would come out swinging the bat, and they did. We didn’t get the results we wanted, but we got a good effort out of Joe Collins. But a couple of balls got left up, and they tattooed them a little bit and got some runs early. Then we had to fight back from there.”
Mooney led the way for St. Mary’s with three hits, while Schubert had two. Cole Sibley added an RBI.
Brenden Leonard led Catholic Central with two hits.
“We had a great season,” MacKinnon said. “We ran up against a really nice ballclub. Matt Petry does a good job with his team, and they played all aspects of the game very well. Porter did a great job, they hit the ball extremely well today and played good defense. After the game, I told (my team) they had a good season, and you don’t throw one season into a situation where one last game means everything for the season.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Orchard Lake St. Mary's Brock Porter makes his move toward the plate Saturday during the Division 2 championship game. (Middle) The Eaglets' Cole Sibley (9) slides into second base as Nate Trudeau awaits the throw.
Portland St. Patrick Caps Near-Perfect Season with Extraordinary Finish
By
Dean Holzwarth
Special for MHSAA.com
June 14, 2025
EAST LANSING – Portland St. Patrick flourished at all three aspects of the game Saturday during the final baseball championship matchup of the 2025 season.
And the top-ranked Shamrocks left little doubt which team was the best in Division 4 this spring.
Timely hitting, stellar pitching and superb defense propelled them to a convincing 10-0 win over Plymouth Christian Academy in five innings at McLane Stadium.
“It was a little surreal, like it didn’t feel real at that moment when we did win it,” said St. Patrick pitcher Brayden Simon, who tossed a one-hitter with two strikeouts and one walk allowed.
“We've been dreaming about this since the first practice in the spring, and this is what we wanted since the beginning.”
The Shamrocks finished with a 34-1 overall record and their only loss coming against No. 2 Mount Pleasant Sacred Heart.
The final game was a culmination of hard work and commitment to secure the program’s first Finals title since 2017.
“We just executed at a very high level today,” St. Patrick coach Bryan Scheurer said. “And this is like the opportunity that you wait for when you practice. We do some very unselfish team things that they buy into like they love it, and it was on display today. I’m so proud and happy for them, and it was winning baseball.”
The top-ranked Shamrocks scored at least one run in every inning and kept the Cougars off the scoreboard with an array of defensive plays.
“They put a lot of balls in play against me, and I can’t believe how well those guys played for me (on defense) tonight,” Simon said. “It was an overall good effort. Everybody just bought in, and we are going to do what it takes to become a champion. We are going to do the little things right every game, and for the most part we did that.”
The Shamrocks stormed out to an early 3-0 advantage with three runs in the first inning and tacked on three more over the next two innings.
They added a pair of runs in the fourth inning to increase their lead to 8-0.
“Our motto for the team has been ‘Bring the juice,’ and we take an early lead and respect them so much with seeing their path and schedule and we just wanted to keep getting one more,” Scheurer said. “Get one more and keep playing till they tell you to stop playing.”
Sophomore Jerryd Scheurer, junior Charlie Thelen and Tyler Thelen combined for six of the Shamrocks’ 10 hits. Charlie Thelen had two RBIs and two runs scored.
A throng of fans filled the bleachers to support the tiny school consisting of fewer than 90 students.
“It’s great to see that these people all showed up and are waiting for us to celebrate,” junior Brady Leonard said. “They all came here to support us, and here we are giving back to them.”
The Eagles (29-8) finished runners-up for the second time in three years. They lost to Beal City in the 2023 Final.
Plymouth Christian Academy managed only one hit and committed four errors this time. The Eagles’ only real scoring chance came in the fourth inning when they loaded the bases before popping out to end the inning.
“It just spiraled, and that's baseball,” Eagles coach Euro Perkola said. “I told the boys after the game that not one game defines you, and we had a great season overall. That’s a great pitcher and coaching staff over there, and they play the game the right way. It just wasn’t our day today.”
PHOTOS (Top) Portland St. Patrick players pile on the pitcher’s mound to celebrate their championship win Saturday evening at McLane Stadium. (Middle) Simon White (15) lays down one of several Shamrocks’ bunts.