West Rides Hot Start after Record Finish
April 21, 2017
By Dennis Chase
Special for Second Half
TRAVERSE CITY – Traverse City West has the blueprint.
Now the Titans are hoping to build off their success from last spring when they won a school-record 41 games and reached the MHSAA Division 1 Baseball Semifinals.
So far, so good. The Titans are off to a 6-1 start.
“We always keep the same goals, the same expectations,” coach Matt Bocian said. “Winning the conference, winning the District, those are the expectations. And then you set your goals a little higher (after that). Once you get a little taste of something (like a Semifinal appearance), maybe you want a little more. We try to keep them hungry.”
West returns just two everyday starters from a year ago – centerfielder Gavin Garmhausen and pitcher-third baseman Ryan Hayes – but several other underclassmen saw significant action.
“We feel good with the team we have – and where we’re at,” senior catcher-first baseman Carson Rosa said. “We have good talent. We just have to come to practice every day wanting to get better. Without that attitude, we’re going to flat line and we’re not going to be as good as we want to be.”
Rosa provided the biggest hit in the first couple weeks when he singled in Garmhausen in the bottom of the seventh inning to beat Flushing 4-3 in the opener of a doubleheader Monday at Central Michigan University. West won the nightcap 14-1.
Earlier, the Titans beat Coldwater 4-2, Hamilton 7-1, White Cloud 12-2 and Morley-Stanwood 12-1. The lone loss came in the Coldwater tournament to Fremont, Ind., 9-6.
“We’re not where we need to be, but we’re going to get better and better,” Hayes said.
Hayes was one of the standouts last season. He was 10-1 with a 0.90 ERA on the mound. At the plate, Hayes hit .418, one of four players to bat over .400.
As a team, the Titans scored 427 runs in 44 games, which is 10th on the MHSAA’s all-time runs list. West also pounded out 431 hits, also 10th all-time. The 41 wins rank sixth in MHSAA history.
“It was crazy,” Garmhausen said of last season’s offensive fireworks.
The centerfielder did his part, hitting .368 with 41 RBI, 44 hits and 47 runs.
The run to the Semifinals, where the Titans lost to eventual champion Warren DeLaSalle 3-1, was the longest in school history.
“We came from behind in every (tournament) game,” Garmhausen said. “It proved to us that we could do big things up here.”
Garmhausen has picked up where he left off. He’s currently hitting near .500.
Hayes, meanwhile, has pitched in two games. He went five innings, allowing no earned runs, three hits and striking out 10 in the win over Hamilton. He also went the first six innings in Monday’s triumph over Flushing, surrendering two earned runs and striking out nine.
Sophomore Brendan Pierce earned the win in the nightcap to improve to 2-0. Mike Laracey, Dan Ayling and Colin Campbell are all 1-0.
“I always tell my teams pitching and defense will win you games,” Bocian said. “Then you see if you can scrape across a few runs. That was our motto last year. It just so happened we had some kids (explode at the plate), and others followed.”
Garmhausen, Hayes, Laracey, Rosa, Ayling, A.J. Ruskowski, Sam DeKuiper and Tristan Reeves have wielded the hots bats this season.
Three of those players – Garmhausen, Hayes and Rosa – have particularly interesting backstories.
Garmhausen’s father, Brad, was a three-sport star at Frankfort in the early 1980s, earning all-state recognition in football, basketball and baseball. He coached Gavin in Little League.
His advice to his son?
“Keep working, keep a positive attitude and things will go your way,” Gavin said.
Gavin, 18, plays two sports. He was on the West varsity hockey team four years and was named to the Traverse City Record-Eagle Dream Team for his play this past winter.
Garmhausen is in his third year on the varsity baseball team. He bats leadoff and plays centerfield.
He describes himself as “a hard worker, a leader, a guy that wants to win, a guy that wants to set an example for his teammates.”
His coach agrees with that assessment.
“He loves the sport,” Bocian said. “He wants to succeed as much as anybody. He has a lot of tools. He’s put a lot of time into getting where he’s at – and it shows.”
Garmhausen plans to play baseball at Bradenton Inspiration Academy in Florida next school year before enrolling in college.
Hayes, a 6-foot-7 junior, is a bona fide three-sport star. He’s one of the state’s top football recruits in the 2018 class. Hayes holds 11 scholarship offers, including from University of Michigan, Michigan State and Notre Dame. A tight end-defensive end for the Titans, Hayes is being recruited as an offensive tackle.
The junior was the most valuable player in the Big North Conference in basketball. He led the Titans to the Class A Regional Finals – the best boys basketball tournament run in school history.
He also comes from an athletic family. His older brother Connor, also a lineman, signed with University of Pittsburgh out of high school. His father, Mike, was an offensive lineman at Central Michigan University. His mother Sue (Nissen) Arthur starred in basketball at CMU. She’s the school’s second all-time leading scorer and was a freshman All-American and a three-time first-team Mid-American Conference honoree. Arthur was inducted into CMU’s Hall of Fame in 2001.
(Incidentally, at CMU, Arthur played with Traverse City’s Suzy Merchant, Molly (Piche’) Russell and Wendy (Merriman) Sherwin and Gaylord St. Mary’s Lori (McCluskey) Phillips. While Merchant is now the women’s basketball coach at MSU, Arthur, Sherwin and Phillips all reside in Traverse City and their children have gone on to success at three different schools.
Sherwin’s three sons – Ben, Sam and Jack – were linemen on Traverse City Central’s 9-2 football team last fall that won a second consecutive Big North Conference title. Their offensive line position coach? Their father, Greg, a former lineman at CMU. Ben, a senior, signed with Ferris State.
Phillips’ son, Noah, plays basketball at Grand Valley State. The 6-8 Phillips averaged 19.8 points and 7.2 rebounds his senior season at St. Francis. Juliana, a current senior at St. Francis, just earned all-state laurels in basketball, to go with similar honors in volleyball. She’ll attend St. Louis University on a volleyball scholarship in the fall.)
In another year, Ryan Hayes will be gearing up for college. He planned to make a decision where – and notify college football coaches – late this summer, but that timetable has been moved up.
For now, he’s enjoying baseball. And when asked if there’s a sport he doesn’t like, he laughs.
“Not really,” he said. “I like them all.”
Hayes has a fastball that’s been clocked at 89 miles per hour, he said, although he hasn’t thrown that hard in this cold, spring weather. Still, he has 19 strikeouts in 11 innings.,
“Ryan came in last year as a sophomore, not projected to be our No. 2 starter, and he ended up 10-1,” Bocian said. “When you look at his athleticism, and the opportunities he has as a player in all three of his sports, it’s mindboggling.”
Like Ben Sherwin, Carson Rosa signed to play football at Ferris State.
It’s where Rosa’s father, Mark, played baseball after a standout career at Clare High School. Mark Rosa was inducted into the Clare Hall of Fame in 2013.
Carson Rosa’s senior football season was interrupted by injury. The 6-5, 220-pound senior quarterback had led the Titans to impressive wins over Midland and Grand Haven to start what looked like a promising season. Then, in a week three showdown with Traverse City Central, he dislocated his right ankle and broke his fibula when he was hit attempting a pass and his cleat caught in the artificial turf.
Incredibly, he returned after six weeks to start West’s playoff game, also against Central.
“My doctor, Dr. (Tom) O’Hagan, planted the seed in my mind that it was going to be at least a six-week recovery,” Rosa said. “That meant I was going to strive for that six weeks. All I was focused on was school and rehab.”
Rosa wondered if college coaches would back off. Not all did.
“I got a couple texts,” he said. “They were like, ‘Sorry to hear about your injury. We’d still like to have you as part of our team in the future.’ That was nice to know because I wasn’t going to get a senior year to prove (myself).”
Ferris was one of the schools that kept in touch.
“They see me as an athlete who has the potential to play multiple positions, not just quarterback,” Rosa said. “I could be an H-back.”
Rosa also played three sports until this season. He gave up basketball since his ankle was still sore.
“I wanted to be 100 percent ready for baseball,” he said. “I love baseball. It was my sport until I started playing football in eighth grade. But I still love it and I did not want to sacrifice the season that we’re going to have because I knew we were returning some good talent – and I was going to get to play with my best friends.”
Rosa is off to a hot start. He belted a two-run homer in the Morley Stanwood tournament.
“He’s got all the tools to be successful,” Bocian said. “He’s a gamer. When it’s game time, that’s when Carson is at his best.”
Now, if the weather would just improve. West might still be a couple weeks away from hosting its first twinbill. In the meantime, the Titans are hitting the road. Their travels will take them to Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern on Saturday.
Dennis Chase worked 32 years as a sportswriter at the Traverse City Record-Eagle, including as sports editor from 2000-14. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Traverse City West pitcher Ryan Hayes works on a hitter during last season’s Division 1 Semifinal loss to Warren DeLaSalle. (Middle) Gavin Garmhausen, also here against DeLaSalle, joins Hayes among returning starters this spring.
Fish's Powerful Record Pursuit Helped Set Stage for College, Pro Achievements
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
August 27, 2026
Many of the home runs were prodigious, some of the balls landing on the tops of schools, crashing onto car roofs, into clumps of trees, empty parking lots and neighboring practice fields.
Two of Zach Fish's record-setting clouts, in fact, landed on the I-94 expressway and in the middle of a cemetery.
But it wasn't the variety of locations that made his homers remarkable. It was their number.
As a senior at Richland Gull Lake in 2011, Fish set the state single-season home run record with 24. The total not only broke the record of 23 set by Morley-Stanwood's Jim Willison in 1998 and Drew Henson of Brighton in 1997, but no hitter since has even made a serious run at breaking Fish's mark. The closest has been 15 homers by Zach MacDonald of Portage Central in 2021.
"There were some fun ones," Fish said of the homers.
Fifteen years later, Fish, now a corporal for the Granbury, Texas, police force, said he looks at his record-setting season much the same as he did during the final three months of his high school career. He remembers feeling a sense of accomplishment, but also relief as the Blue Devils, which would finish 38-2, could now switch focus from Fish's record to the drive of winning a state title.
Fish said when he thinks back over his career, it's not only the home run chase he remembers but also cherishing a leadership role on a young Blue Devils club. Fish also remembers the 5 a.m. offseason workouts designed to strengthen his 6-foot, 200-pound frame, and always seeking new ways to hone his special talent for recognizing and adjusting to how high school pitchers were trying to get him out.
As for the record, Fish also recalls the torrid late-season stretch it took to surpass Henson and Willison. Just when it looked like he could fall short, Fish slammed 16 homers over his final 17 games, including his last three in the Regional tournament to break the record.
Fish said an overlooked part of the 24 homers – and something which was probably a benefit – was that aside from local media, no one was clamoring for stories each step of the way. There was minimal distraction outside of the Gull Lake community as Fish approached breaking one of the most sought-after state records.
"There wasn't any social media back then. Not much hype or noise around it," he said. "And I got a lot of positive reinforcement from the people around me. No one said anything if I came back to the bench without hitting a homer or getting a hit. The important thing was we were winning as a team. I think my success was a product of how successful the team was.
"I stayed within the mindset of the team. With all the people around me, I never got too high or too low. That helped me focus.”
The 24 homers closed out a remarkable career for Fish, who after his senior season was taken by the Texas Rangers in the 24th round of the 2011 MLB draft. Fish, who hit .561 with 82 RBIs as a senior, was named to the Rawlings, Baseball America and MaxPreps All-America teams. He would be recruited by Michigan, Clemson, Vanderbilt, Louisville, Washington and Georgia Tech before signing with Oklahoma State, where he would become the Big 12 Player of the Year as a junior.
Fish's story from growing up playing in a Kalamazoo recreation league as a grade schooler to being taken by the Chicago White Sox in the 11th round (318th overall) of the 2014 draft and spending two years in pro ball includes, by his own admission, an extraordinary drive to succeed.
"Bordering on obsession," he said. "Baseball was more than a passion with me. I loved baseball and what it stood for. It's America's pastime for a reason."
Growing up, Fish actually showed minimal signs of becoming a nationally elite-level player. He played rec ball in Kalamazoo and later hooked up with the Midland Braves travel team for three seasons as a 16, 17 and 18-year-old. He played two seasons at Kalamazoo Central where he batted .291 with five homers as a freshman and then .423 with six homers as a sophomore.
Family obligations led him to transfer to Gull Lake as a junior, where he quickly blossomed. He hit .473 with 12 homers, 57 RBIs and 27 stolen bases.
"Coaches would help me," Fish said of his power. "They said just swing hard in case you hit it. I truly believed that. The first two years in high school I was kind of sporadic in terms of hard contact. A lot of that was in my approach."
Fish's junior season set the stage for his sensational final year. He barely had double digits in homers by midseason before catching fire in the second half. But with 21 homers heading into the Regional, he was still two short of tying the record. He climbed to within one when he homered during a 12-2 Regional opener win against Sturgis, then slammed two more in a 13-2 Regional Final victory over Hamilton to set the record.
With the achievement accomplished, Fish said he remembers returning to the bench after the second homer against Hamilton with mixed emotions.
"At first I came back like it was just another homer," he said. "I was in the dugout, put my (catching) gear back on and I had this moment of what I did. But at the same time, I was glad it was out of the way and now we could focus on the team and winning a state title.
"The last three weeks was a good stretch, but I was able to swing the bat because the guys in front of me were getting on base and pitchers had nowhere to put me."
In a 6-5 Quarterfinal win over Grand Rapids Catholic Central, Cougars pitchers virtually refused to pitch to Fish. Amid a flurry of intentional walks, Fish saw only one strike, which he smashed for a bases-loaded triple. The team concluded its season with a 6-1 Semifinal loss to eventual Division 2 champ St. Clair as Fish flew out twice and was safe on an error in his final high school at-bats.
According to MaxPreps, the 24 homers ties Fish for 27th place nationally, just six behind the all-time record of 30. His 82 RBIs as a senior ties him for 26th place. Fish finished his prep career with 47 home runs, 23 behind the state record of 70 hit by Henson from 1995-98. Fish's 203 career RBIs are second behind Henson's 290. The 24 homers in 116 at-bats means Fish hit a homer an incredible once every 4.8 at-bats.
Former Gull Lake coach Bill Blakely said Fish was always striving for perfection as a hitter. He recalls Fish would often come back to the bench following a home run lamenting his swing could have been better. As for the record, Blakely said he would occasionally move Fish around on defense, including making use of his 90-mph fastball on the mound, to keep his mind off hitting. Blakely reasoned Fish could get a break from the pressure of the home run chase if he had to focus on defense.
"Externally, he didn't show that it bothered him," Blakely said of the chase. "We had lots of kids who could keep him loose. It was a light atmosphere. We would count the homers as they came along, but he didn't go into any slumps as he got close.
"As for the record, it wasn't if he was going to set it, but when, barring an injury."
2026 Made In Michigan
Aug. 18: Glen Lake Grad Adds Pacific Ocean to Life's Journey in Completing World's Toughest Row - Report
Aug. 13: Basketball Takes 'The Judge' Worldwide, Home Again as Love of Game Lives On - Report
Aug. 11: Nearly 25 Years After Leading Unexpected Run, Morton Directing Life-Changing Mission - Report
Aug. 7: Significance of Historic Run, Relationships Formed Live On for 1973 Unity Champs - Report
Aug. 4: Work Ethic Continues to Drive Van Dyk's Endeavors as Co-Owner of Family Farm - Report
July 24: Hackett Mentor's Care Sparked Lifetime in Hoops for BCAM President White - Report
July 24: Mackey Leaving Court with 500+ College Hoops Wins, Many More Lessons Shared - Report
July 16: Country Day Two-Time Champ Moore Building Perennial Winner at Harvard - Report
July 9: Multi-Sport Career at TC West Helps Gillis Thrive as Pro in Game She Once Left Behind - Report
July 2: Inspired by Home, Eager to Give Back, Spencer Hosts Hoop City Alumni Games - Report
PHOTOS (Top) At left, Gull Lake's Zach Fish follows a drive during his senior season in 2011, and at right Fish is now an officer in Granbury, Texas. (Middle) Fish takes the field as part of the Rookie-level Great Falls Voyagers. (Below) Fish mans the catcher position for Gull Lake during a Division 2 Semifinal against St. Clair in 2011. (Granbury and Great Falls photos courtesy of the Fish family. Hitting photo by Gary Shook. Catching photo from MHSAA archives.)