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St. Patrick wins D-4 title for the first time, 6-2 over Hudson
East Lansing – Even Portland St. Patrick head coach Bryan Scheurer will tell you, this year wasn’t supposed to be the year for the Shamrocks.
After advancing to last year’s Division 4 state championship game, St. Patrick lost several key contributors and returned in 2017 with a very young team that consisted of six freshman, three sophomores, six juniors and just two seniors.
But on Saturday afternoon, the Shamrocks were back at McLane Stadium at Michigan State playing in the Division 4 final for a second straight season.
And with a team that featured a handful of players who returned from last year’s team and plenty of youth, St. Patrick would use a three run first inning to lead the Shamrocks to their first title in program history, 6-2 over Hudson.
Scheurer said that heading into this season, his expectations for his team were to continue improving throughout the year and compete for a league and district title, but added that he never told his team those were the goals he had set for his squad.
“We wanted to win 20 games and keep this program moving forward, try to compete for a league title and we wanted to compete in districts” he said. “Maybe the smartest thing I did was I didn’t tell them. They thought we were supposed to be really good, so maybe that was the smartest thing I did was not telling them that we were just going to be okay.”
St. Patrick would start fast as the Shamrocks would score three runs in the first inning to take a 3-0 lead over Hudson following an RBI single off the bat of Noah Goodman.
After Hudson would cut the deficit to 4-1 in the top half of the fourth inning on a Logan Wielfaert RBI single to left field, the Shamrocks responded almost immediately with a run of their own in the bottom half of the inning on an RBI single off the bat of Dan Mackowiak to push the lead back to four, 5-1.
Helping pace the St. Patrick offensive attack on Saturday was senior Brendan Schrauben, who finished 2-for-3 with three runs scored on the day.
“We knew we were up there with some of the best teams in the state and we played like it today,” Schrauben said. “They were a great team and we just played great today and we came out with the win.”
Hudson would again score in the fifth inning as Andrew Valdez singled to center field to bring home another run. But in the bottom of the sixth, St. Patrick would tack on an extra insurance run on an RBI double from Brandon Scheurer to extend the lead to 6-2.
Earning the win on the mound for St. Patrick was freshman Devin Fedewa, who allowed two runs in five innings of work and recorded three strikeouts.
Bryan Scheurer said that he was proud of the way his team’s underclassmen played on Saturday on the big stage and added that many of those players grew up around the Shamrocks’ baseball team
“I guess they don’t know any better,” he said. “I’m just so proud of them, they watched our program growing up, they’re hanging on the fence with their fingers in the fence and they couldn’t wait to be a part of it and they are in a big way.”
