Comet baseball season ends at regional semifinals, Lumen Christi wins 2-0
After a hard off-season of workout, practices and summer ball, the expectations for the 2022-23 varsity Comet baseball team were higher than what their previous season's record would indicate. In the second year under coach Corey Rogers, the Comets won just 13 games in 2022. This season, the four seniors leading the ball club helped lead the team to a winning season and championship trophies.
However, their playoff run would come to an end on Wednesday, June 7. The Comets would lose to a top 10 ranked Jackson Lumen Christi squad in the regional semifinals by a final score of 2-0. Titan pitcher Jackson Kremer would allow just one hit over five innings, striking out five. Comet pitcher Drew Bradley matched that pitching effort through five innings. Jackson Lumen Christi would score once in the first and once in the fourth, and that was the only time the Titans were able to best the Jonesville fielding and pitching effort.
That hard-fought game on both sides saw the Comets earn multiple double-play opportunities thanks to impressive fielding efforts from their infielders. The Comets were able to put themselves in position to regain the initiative in the later innings of the game, but the hits did not come for their team. Gabe King and Ryan Walicki closed the game out for the Titans. Both pitchers combined for four strikeouts and gave up just one Comet hit. Drew Bradley's night ended in the bottom of the sixth inning. The Comet struck out three batters and gave up two runs, one earned. Bradley would have one of the base hits for Jonesville.
Senior Jaxson Phifer had one double-base hit for the Comets. Comet Damon Newell reached on an error and found his way to second base in the top of the seventh inning. The Comets were unable to take advantage of their runner-on-base in that final half-inning.
Head coach Corey Rogers believes that if the Comets had put more pressure on the Titans, the outcome could have gone either way in the final innings of the semifinal.
"That was a game that could have gone either way," said Rogers. "If we were able to put some pressure on them and make it a one–run game, then the game could have gone extra innings and have gone either way. It’s just being able to execute and taking advantage of the opportunities we had. We just didn’t get that key hit to score that run to put the pressure on them."
Jackson Lumen Christi moves on to the regional championship game on Saturday, June 10. The team plays Ottawa Lake Whiteford in the title game at 12:30 p.m. The game will be held at Adrian College and will be followed by the MHSAA quarterfinals at 3:00 p.m. Grass Lake and Bridgman play in the other regional title game. The winners of the two championships will play in the quarterfinals.
The Jonesville Comets end their 2023 spring campaign with a 26-11 overall record. The team managed to win a share of the Big 8 conference championship in their final season as members of that conference. The team then defeated their Big 8 rivals from Homer to win the district championship game 5-3. The team also defeated the Hillsdale Hornets in the district semifinals by a score of 7-0.
In a memorable season for Comet baseball and the third year under coach Rogers, the team managed to make a vast improvement over the offseason. The team had several winning streaks throughout the season and had a Saturday tournament trophy win at Whtie Pigeon. The team traveled to Adrian College on May 16 to take on Concord, a doubleheader they won by scores of 1-0 and 8-2. The team loses four senior members, including Ayden Males, Tyler Scholfield, Bradley Wright and Jaxson Phifer. All four seniors were integral to the success of the team this season.
For Phifer, the senior saw the growth of the team throughout the season, and he was proud of how hard they worked to reach their goals. The senior said some of his favorite memories including the tournaments on Saturdays, building the team's chemistry on the long bus rides and winning a district title.
"I’m very proud of our maturity level over the year," said Phifer. "It started a little rough, but we all came through and improved over the season. At the beginning of the year, we were nowhere near this level of play and over the year we just worked our buts off and it worked out. The bus rides and winning districts were awesome, and those Saturday tournaments building our team chemistry were memorable. I think we are starting to build a good culture here and I am just happy to be a part of it. I wanted to thank our coaches for pushing us and making it a great atmosphere at the same time."
Scholfield saw the team's effort to turn things around from last season to this season. He was proud to see that effort pay off for his teammates and coaches. Scholfield thanked his coaches, teammates and parents for helping him become the leader his teams needed. Scholfield believes the younger members of the Comet baseball program are in a great position to succeed early-on in their transition to the Cascades Conference in the 2023-24 school year.
"I’m just proud of these guys," said Tyler Scholfield. "Coming off of last year and really turning it around was nice and I’m just proud of the guys for that. The next guys just need to work their buts off and trust coach because he knows what he’s doing. They are good enough to compete in the Cascades and I think they are going to do special things next year. They need to just stay working hard and find a way to get better every day. It’ll be over soon, so love it while you can. I want to thank my parents for coming to watch every game and doing everything they can to make me the player I am in every sport. It means a lot to have them there and I love the support they give me."
Coach Rogers has watched this group of seniors play baseball for a long time. Rogers said that seeing their growth athletically and with their maturity is part of what makes the job of a coach so gratifying.
"I’ve watched these kids play baseball since youth sports," said Rogers. "That’s the enjoyment part as a coach. You love to see them grow athletically but you also like to see them grow with their maturity and become young men. That’s the gratifying thing about being a coach and seeing that growth and just knowing they are going to go on and do great things in life. Athletics teaches you so much about life and baseball teaches you about life because it is a game of failure. That failure makes you stronger and teaches you how to handle certain situations in life. I am really proud of those seniors and I’m excited to see what they go on to do as young men."
Coach Rogers credited Bradley Wright for being the anchor of their outfield and for being an all-around coachable player who passed that on to his fellow teammates. “He was a key centerfielder for us with zero errors on the season," said Rogers. "He was the captain of our outfield and was just a great all-around baseball player and a really coachable kid.”
Rogers credited Scholfield and Phifer for helping bring their championship experiences over to the team just before the season started. It was the final lessons they had learned from a leadership role that added to the rest of the work they had put in during the offseason.
“Tyler was a three-sport athlete who knew how to handle pressure from being in other sports and being involved in different pressure situations. I would put Jaxson Phifer in that same situation because they have been teammates in those sports. They just came off a district title in basketball and that’s taught them how to deal with pressure situations. They’ve turned that into great leadership for this team. The good teams have to find those leaders in the program that are going to coach those other kids and be mentors and teach them how to become more mature in the game all-around.
Ayden Males, who was one of the top starting pitchers for the Comets last season, had to undergo a surgery during the offseason that made it a difficult rehabilitation for the senior. Coach Rogers credited Males for battling through that injury and for being a 110-percent all-the-time athlete for the Comets.
“Males has been with us the whole ride. Ayden has been a great kid and has been a really coachable, 110-percent all the time athlete for us. He just dealt with an injury in the off-season and had to have shoulder surgery. That set him back a little bit and it was just about getting his strength back this year. It’s tough to have an injury as a senior because you can’t bounce back like you want to when you have an injury in that timeline. I’m really proud of him and we are going to miss his leadership and the leadership from all four seniors."
Rogers and the team laid out their goals early on in their offseason. Rogers said that this season's success was a combination of many factors, including making sure everyone had the same mindset at the start of the spring.
“You need to have the mindset around your program, and you got to set those goals early on,” said coach Rogers. “It’s not about getting great from 3-5 and executing off that. It’s about putting in the work all-around in summer ball and doing the off-season workouts. You must have a purpose throughout every stage of working on the game, and we did all of that. We had the talks and communication. Everybody knew their role, had the same goals in mind and was a family about it. All that off-season hard work pays off and you got to build a program around that. If you can get everyone on the same page and with the same goals in mind, you are going to have success.”
With the end of the spring sports season just around the corner. The Comet athletics programs will prepare for their transition to their new life as members of the Cascades Conference. Coach Rogers said that the biggest challenge his team will face is getting use to the new faces and competition.
“The biggest challenge is knowing your competition,” said Rogers. “You haven’t seen a lot of those guys if you haven’t matched up in a non-conference game. As a team, the pitching staff is coming back next year. We are really young with our pitching staff and that is very promising with this team. There is a little unknown with those new teams, but it’s also exciting as well. There’s going to be new matchups, new rivalries and you just got to be excited about it and take it as a positive.”
This article originally appeared on Hillsdale Daily News: Comet baseball season ends at regional semifinals, Lumen Christi wins 2-0
