Brother Rice players celebrate their 5-1 victory after Orchard Lake St. Mary’s and Brother Rice square off at Comerica Park during the Catholic League finals Thursday May 26, 2016 in Detroit.
Birmingham Brother Rice used three basic rules of baseball to win a fifth consecutive Catholic League A-B division championship.
“Our motto is first, throw strikes, two, catch the ball, three, put the ball in play,” said head coach Bob Riker. “That’s what we live life by.”
It translated into a 5-1 win over Orchard Lake St. Mary’s today at Comerica Park, boosting the Warriors to a 26-7 season record.
Senior pitcher Karl Kauffmann gave up five walks but struck out six, and added a single and scored a run for Brother Rice. He said the professional field mound made a big difference from the high school fields that teams usually encounter.
“The mound’s a little stickier than the ones we usually throw of off in high school,” Kauffmann said. “The ones were used to are dust balls but this one was firmer and I could get through pitches a lot better. You can really work off it.”
Kauffmann held Orchard Lake to two hits, the last coming from Joe Carlini in the top of the seventh and scored Harrison Salter, who had originally walked. But that wasn’t enough to overcome Rice’s 5-run fifth inning.
In that inning, after his single Kauffmann reached third base on a wild pitch, then scored when Jack Orlowski struck out. But a second wild pitch got him safely to first. Orlowski and JD Allen later scored on a bases loaded, 2-RBI single by Christian Faust. Two batters later, freshman Antonio Flores stroked a double to right field, scoring Caleb Jackson and Faust.
“This never gets old,” Riker said of five straight league championships. “There’s guys who played for me last year, but when you add one new person it’s a whole dynamic (change). When you add a guy like Tito (Flores), he’s a freshman, and you bring up a guy like (Jack) Orlowsky. I brought him up eight days ago and here he is playing at Comerica, because he’s hot right now and he got the first hit in the hole.”
Orchard Lake is ranked No. 1 in the state in Division 2 and is the defending state champs.
“They compete really, really well,” Riker said of the Eaglets. “They know how to play the game and they do things right. They’re very talented and they never give up.”
Riverview Richard 5, Pontiac Notre Dame Prep 1
Winning pitcher Jake Lipetzky had one more shot and he made the best of it to lead Richard (17-4) to the Catholic League C-D Division tournament title.
Richard coach Michael Magier noted that Lipetzky’s velocity was down and he didn’t have good control when giving up three walks and a run to Notre Dame Prep early.
“I told him he’s got to work out of it,” Magier said. “We were really close to pulling him. I was halfway out there and I said we’d give him one more hitter and then he kind of got in a groove. So I guess patience paid off. He’s been a bulldog for us for the past two years so we were expecting him to pitch well.
“I don’t know if he was just amped up, a little glassy-eyed about being here at Comerica. We had to work through it. He figured it out.”
Richard’s big hits came in the top of the fifth inning with the score tied at 1-1. Junior Zach Swain drilled a single through the left side gap of the infield with the bases loaded to score Jacob Hanoian and Josh Blaszczak. Then Josh Tufts followed with a two-RBI triple to right field to end the scoring.
“I definitely love those kinds of situations,” Swain said about having the bases loaded with two outs. “I love to come up under pressure and come out with a big hit.
“We knew it at that point, that we had the game, because Jake was pitching good, we were hitting the ball, getting people on base and were making plays.”
Magier said the championship title will help kick off the postseason.
“This was big for our school,” he said. “It’s been a while since we’ve done it (both 2006, ’07) so I’m proud of the guys, the way they came out and battled.”