Hat's off: Gaylord wins D2 softball state title

Jun. 17—EAST LANSING — About the only thing Gaylord did wrong Saturday was forget the home run chain.

The team's customary gold chain with a "Queen" medallion was left behind, so Jayden Jones found a suitable replacement Friday, buying a silver sequin cowboy hat at Dry Goods.

And, as luck would have it, it was needed when Alexis Kozlowski hit her second home run in the Final Four, a two-run shot to center field to give No. 1-ranked Gaylord a 2-0 lead in the third inning of Saturday's Division 2 softball state championship game against No. 6 Vicksburg (41-4-1) at Michigan State University's Secchia Stadium.

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Gaylord (39-2) won 8-3 to give the school its first state championship in any sport since 2007.

"It's absolutely amazing," said Kozlowski, a Ferris State commit who's one of only two seniors on the team. "We just came here with a bang. This team has been playing together forever and we bonded and we've worked hard."

Kozlowski's blast was Gaylord's 72nd this season, extending their single-season state record.

Jayden Jones, the junior Virginia Tech commit who missed the playoffs with a broken wrist, watched her sister Aubrey throw a three-hitter. But she said she knew they were going to win way before that.

"After regionals, I was 100 percent confident that we were going to win this," Jayden Jones said. "I don't know what it was, but I just had a really good feeling that this was our year."

Gaylord won the 2007 girls cross country state championship under coach Jeff Kalember, who still teaches chemistry at Gaylord High School. The Blue Devils also won the 1994 competitive cheerleading title in the sport's first year as an MHSAA sport.

"They were so close two years ago, so it is great to see them come through with a win this year," Kalember said. "We've had so many Gaylord teams in the last 40 years place second at the state finals. It's good to see the girls getting this win when other teams have come so close. David Wenzel had four teams finish second back in the '90s for cross country. Jerry LaJoie's wrestlers have been second. I have a good number of these girls in chemistry (class), and they're all great kids and good students in addition to being good athletes."

The Blue Devils lost in the 2021 semifinals with a freshman-laden team and at home in regionals last year against Escanaba. Both of those setbacks served as motivation to not let this opportunity slip by, even without one of their star players.

"It was really hard," Jayden Jones said, holding back tears. "I'm out there with my girls. They had my back since it happened, and I'm just so proud of how they fought and competed. They had each other's back through the whole thing and I just couldn't be prouder of them."

Junior center fielder Braleigh Miller, a Ferris State commit along with Kozlowski and Addison Wangler, was 4-for-4 in the game with two stolen bases and two runs scored from the leadoff spot.

"Braleigh really is a spark plug for the whole team," Blue Devils first-year head coach Tony Vaden said. "When she gets on, everybody feeds off that energy. Just a real kinetic kid. Great game for her today."

Eight current Blue Devils played for the Gaylord U10 Little League team that won a 2016 state title.

"It was a goal to come back and win again," Miller said. "We had so much fun doing it when we were 8, 9 and 10, and then to do it again as teenagers, it's really great."

"We've been waiting our whole life basically," junior Lexi Shepherd added. "We did at once when we were little, and it means everything to really just come through for our team and our community."

The Blue Devils chanted the lyrics "We're ready. We're ready. We're ready for y'all" before the game. Usually one of their walk-out songs, they couldn't use a speaker in the dugout at the finals and improvised.

They were definitely ready.

Aubrey Jones had a perfect game going through three innings, and Kozlowski's third-inning blast to center that also brought in Lexi Shepherd gave the Devils a lead they wouldn't relinquish.

Gaylord players and fans wore "Championship Mindset" shirts all playoffs, even putting the motto on their gear bags. But players didn't need a reminder of the team's goal all along.

"We just kept it in our heads," Kozlowski said. "We didn't need to look at something to have it in our brains to remind us. We just had it in mind the whole season and we were preparing like we were going to win a championship. ... It was my last (game) and I wanted to go out with a bang."

Kozlowski drove in three runs, plating one more with a sixth-inning single to right field as part of a three-run inning in which Shepherd drilled a double to the left centerfield wall that drove in two.

Shepherd and Kozlowski combined to drive in seven of the Blue Devils' eight runs. Shepherd made it 5-1 in the fourth with a sharp double through the infield that drove in Kennedy Wangler and Miller.

Shepherd's two doubles tied a state finals record.

"I am a little smaller, so it takes me a lot more power to succeed," said Shepherd, a University of Toledo commit. "But during that moment, I needed to come through for my team, so that's what I did. ... That probably surprises them a little bit because they don't think that a little girl could hit bombs."

Shepherd also made a wise choice defensively, taking a fielder's choice out at first with the bases loaded in the fourth inning that put Vicksburg on the board, but also prevented a possible big inning.

Senior Abby Radulski came across in the fourth on Miller's slap single, going home when Vicksburg tried to catch the speedy Miller at first.

"We set a goal in January, and we've worked day in, day out," Miller said. "And to do it, especially with our two seniors, to go out like this, we really wanted to do it not only not just for ourselves, but for the team. We set out, and we just did it."

Miller said the championship is rewarding because of the injury obstacles she's faced the last two years.

She missed the 2021 semifinal with a broken hand, although she convinced coaches to let her pinch hit late in that game and drew a walk. She sat out the entire 2022 season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

"It was it was such a relief saying totally healthy injury free this year," Miller said. "It was like a whole new ballgame and it was great."

The Blue Devils posted a 16-2 record against ranked teams, splitting a doubleheader with Hartland, which won the Division 1 state crown Saturday with a 9-1 win over Woodhaven.

Junior shortstop Maddison Diekman had two of the Bulldogs' three hits on the day, with the other a Peyton Smith solo home run on the seventh inning's first pitch. Freshman catcher Kayla Chisolm, whose grandparents live in Suttons Bay, scored a run for Vicksburg.

"It'll hurt for a while," said Gephart, who has 297 career victories in 10 seasons. "We'll feel that pain for a while and then hopefully they start realizing just how much they actually accomplished."

Vicksburg lost in the 2016 finals to Richmond, the team they beat to get to this year's championship game.

Vickburg's first-base coach turned to the Gaylord bench in the seventh inning after an Aubrey Jones pitch and said, "That's dirty right there."

Gephart agreed and said Jones was the best hurler they faced this season. That's evidenced by the Bulldogs not squaring up a hit well enough to hit it to shortstop Avery Parker until the final out of the sixth inning.

"She'd have to be right there at the top," Gephart said of Jones. "When you get on a run like this, you see a lot of good pitching, and it gradually gets better as you as you move up the ranks. That's a very good team, very good pitcher. They hit the ball well."

The Blue Devils lose Radulski and Kozlowski to graduation, but return the rest of the team.

Kozlowski hit 15 home runs this season and Radulski's solo homer in the semifinals helped propel the Devils into the title game.

"We'll definitely lose two huge, huge pieces of our team in Alexis and Abby," said Aubrey Jones, who struck out four. "They've done a great job this year, but our team is still super strong. We could definitely do this again next year."