They’re back! Twenty-five win season earns baseball team kudos

HANK

MINCKIEWICZ

It has been quite a few years since anyone outside the city of Southgate has paid much attention to the varsity baseball program.

Well, they’d better pay attention now.

Under coach Andy Green, who is a school board member in Southgate and who took the varsity coaching job because not a lot of qualified candidates took a run at the open position last year, the Titans turned a slow start into a terrific year.

Anderson went 25-10 (10-6 in the Downriver League), they finished all alone in third place in the league, they beat then state-ranked Trenton twice, they beat then state-ranked Plymouth, they swept a pair of league games from archrival Wyandotte and then they beat Wyandotte in a district semifinal game for their first districtlevel victory in 10 years.

Nice start, coach.

“I couldn’t be prouder of these guys,” Green said. “They are a gritty bunch. We weren’t going to out-hit a lot of teams, so we relied on ‘small ball.’ We bunted, we stole a lot of bases and our pitchers threw strikes.”

The Titans started the season poorly, opening with a 2-4 record, but an early season win over Trenton turned things around.

“The Trenton win was a catalyst for us,” said Green. “Trenton is well-coached and they have been a powerhouse in our league. We were down twice against them and came back to win in extra innings.

“After that win you could see it in the guys’ eyes because they knew they could compete with anyone.”

The season was keyed by a trio of pitchers – Dylan Berrios, Juan Llanes and Thomas Laskowski.

Berrios was the ace, but only by a bit. He went 7-2 on the year and only walked eight batters all season. Berrios plays center field when he is not pitching.

Llanes is a smooth-fielding sophomore shortstop when he is not pitching and he led the team with a .400 batting average.

Laskowski, who Green thinks will be a breakout receiver for the Titan football team in the fall, is a great guy to have on the team. He plays short when Llanes pitches, center when Berrios pitches and he played every single position on the field this season.

Other key contributors to this fine turnaround season were third baseman Jace Walerski, who batted .350; Cal Thomas, who came back to play baseball after three year away from the game and led the team in triples, homers and RBI; and senior Connor Sweeney, who is on his way to play college baseball at U-M-Dearborn.

Southgate will return seven starters from the 25-win club, including Berrios, Walerski, Llanes and Laskowski. Plus, the team will get an infusion of young talent off a junior varsity team that went 18-8 this past season.

“The mantra for our pitchers this year was. ‘throw strikes.’ They did that, we ground out our runs and that led to the season we had. We told the kids that little things add up to big things and the way the season worked out proved that.”

The Titans finished the season in a rush, winning 11 of their final 13 games, including the district win over Wyandotte.

The season ended with an 11-0 loss in the district finals to powerful Woodhaven, but even that game was not as bad as it looked. The game was 0-0 heading into the fifth inning before it got away from the Titans.

Green said after the game even Woodhaven head coach Cory Farner came over to complement the Southgate players on their season.

Green, whose last turn as a head varsity baseball coach was 2012, collected his 200th career win this year and said he is already looking forward to next season.

“I wasn’t sure how it was going to play out,” he admitted. “But I got into it right away and I really liked the kids.”