Detroit C.C. gives Adams triple trouble in Div. 1 baseball final

• Detroit Catholic Central defeated Rochester Adams 7-0 to win the Division 1 state baseball championship.
• Catholic Central set a new championship game record by hitting five triples during the game.
• Pitcher Mikey Laser held the Adams offense to just four hits in a shutout performance.

East Lansing — This gave a whole new meaning to the term “triple threat.”

Detroit Catholic Central’s offense was humming during Saturday’s Division 1 state baseball championship game against Rochester Adams on the strength of triples.

Lots and lots of triples.

Catholic Central set a championship game record by hitting five triples, which helped catapult it to a 7-0 victory over Adams in the all-Oakland County title game at Michigan State’s McLane Stadium. 

It was Catholic Central’s first state championship in baseball since 1999 and finished off a terrific state tournament run after Catholic Central lost to Warren De La Salle in the semifinals of the Catholic League tournament on its own home field. 

“What a game right there,” Catholic Central head coach Ryan Rogowski said. “What a hitting performance. I’m telling you, can we hit the ball or what? Them Shamrocks can hit.”

While the offense was sending balls to the wall, Catholic Central was also good at preventing runs thanks to senior Mikey Laser, who limited a powerful Adams offense to just four hits, or one triple fewer than Catholic Central’s lineup produced. 

“I was just trying to get ahead with first-pitch strikes,” Laser said. “Just get the ball to my defense and I know they’ll make plays.” 

Adams (29-9) was making its first appearance in a championship game since 1996, when it lost in the Class A championship game a second year in a row.

This year’s coach, Andy Lamkin, is in his second stint at the helm of the program and was the head coach of those teams that lost in the 1995 and 1996 championship games. 

Thirty years later, Adams hoped to do one better than those teams and claim its first title, but couldn’t get the offense going against Laser and Catholic Central.

“We haven’t done that all year long,” Lamkin said. “You’ve got to give him a lot of credit. He pitched fast. When we did hit the ball hard, it was at people. They outhit us. They took it to us at the beginning and nobody has done that to us this year.” 

The triple-barrage for Catholic Central started on the first pitch of the game, when senior Bennett Thompson laced a rope to the gap in left-center. 

The next batter, senior Dylan Fairchild, duplicated the feat, hitting his own shot to left-center for an RBI triple that made it 1-0 Catholic Central.

An RBI groundout by Nicholas Garnick put Catholic Central up 2-0 in the first.

With two outs and two men on in the second, Fairchild hit another triple, this time scoring two runs to give Catholic Central a 4-0 lead.

The score stayed that way until the fifth, when Thompson hit another triple to start the inning and then scored on a wild pitch to give Catholic Central a 5-0 lead.  Catholic Central then took a 6-0 lead on an RBI single by Cam Swearingen. Junior Jaxon Gatt put Catholic Central up 7-0 in the seventh on a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded.

Keith Dunlap is a freelance writer.