Bay City Western's baseball team has won a heck of a lot of games over the past couple of years. But at Michigan State University, the current Warriors are now 0-2.
After falling to eventual champion Northville in last year’s state semifinals, second-ranked Western suffered another disappointing defeat this time around, losing 6-2 to top-ranked Macomb Dakota in a Division 1 semifinal on Friday.
BCW coach Tim McDonald admitted that it was tough to come up just short of a state final for the second straight year.
They’re going to hurt for a while, but they’re going to realize (what they’ve accomplished)," McDonald said of his players. "We’ve got a banquet on Tuesday, and I’m going to remind them and do my best to put things in perspective.
… It stings, and it should. Whenever you get down here, and anytime you lose, there’s just a finality to it, especially when you get so close," he added. "It hurts a little more when you get so close.
Western senior ace pitcher Luke Lacourse agreed.
“We were excited and confident coming into the game. This team’s an awesome team,” he noted. “It’s a tough way to end it, but they hit the ball well, while we didn’t put the ball in play and didn’t do our job. It just didn’t turn out our way.”
With Lacourse and Dakota’s Luke DeMasse squaring off on the mound, the first three and a half innings breezed by quickly. In the bottom of the fourth, however, the Cougars put together a heck of an inning.
Evan Morrison started the rally with a solid one-out single, and Evan Kavalick followed with a double to the left-centerfield wall. DeMasse then singled up the middle to score both runners.
After Jadon Ford singled to put runners at the corners, Jacob Gjonaj snuck a seeing-eye grounder through the right side of the infield to make it 3-0. Following a passed ball which put runners at second and third, Brady Hamby singled to leftfield to drive in two more runs, giving Dakota six consecutive hits, and making it 5-0.
They were putting good swings on it all game, and I had to be better. I think I just missed too many (pitches) in the zone," Lacourse admitted. "There were a few at-bats where I was up in the count and gave up a hit. They barreled a few balls and had a few bloop hits, but that happens; that’s baseball.
"... A team like that, if you put balls in the zone, they're going to hit it," he added.
McDonald applauded the Cougars for taking advantage of every opportunity.
I told their coach after the first inning, 'The first one to score, wins,' and he kind of laughed, and it did work out that way," McDonald said. "They were the better team today. That’s a tough lineup one through nine.
"Luke has kind of had his way with similar lineups, but to their credit, when he made a mistake, they made him pay for it every time in that one inning," McDonald added.
With all of the momentum on the Cougars’ side, Western answered immediately with a badly-needed rally of its own in the top of the fifth to get back into the game.
Lacourse started the rally with a solid line single to center field, and Jaxon Jenkins reached on a throwing error moments later, putting runners at second and third. Brayden Simmon then ripped a two-run single down the right field line, cutting it to 5-2, before getting thrown out trying to advance to second.
Unfortunately for the Warriors, that would be their only glimmer of hope down the stretch, as Dakota added an insurance run in the sixth, and BCW went down quietly in its final two at-bats.
DeMasse earned the complete-game win, allowing one earned run on only three hits with no walks and five strikeouts.
“That kid isn’t going to give you many chances,” McDonald said of DeMasse. “... It’s almost like he was just toying with us. He made it look easy, and it’s not easy.”
I knew we were going to have a tough time putting a big number on the board. I knew if we were going to win this game, it was going to have to be a low-scoring game," he added. "… They put one big, crooked number up on the board, and sometimes that’s all it takes in seven innings.
At the plate, DeMasse went 2-for-3 with two runs batted in and scored twice, while Kavalick also went 2-for-3.
Lacourse said he feels fortunate to have pitched in back-to-back state semifinals.
That’s something that me and the seniors and a lot of the guys are going to remember forever – getting here back-to-back and having the opportunity to play here," he said. "Coach Mac always says that pressure is a privilege. The pressure of this game is a privilege to have, and it’s something I won’t forget.
McDonald said that his talented senior class has a lot to be proud of.
“We have 106 wins over the last three years. They’ve left their mark,” he noted. “There were a lot of teams and a lot of players who came before them and have set the standard, but this senior class has lived up to our standards and our tradition. It was a great ride they took us on.”
"They’ll remember that when things settle down a little bit," he added.
Looking ahead to the rest of the summer, Lacourse said he is excited to rejoin Berryhill Post 165’s baseball team and try to get back to the American Legion World Series in Shelby, N.C.
It’s a lot more loose, and I can focus on just pitching a lot more," he said of playing for Berryhill. "I think they’re playing this weekend, and I hope they’re doing good. That’ll be exciting this summer, and they’ll keep it fun and loose, and, hopefully, we get a chance to go back to Shelby and play in games like this.
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