EAST LANSING — What a difference two hours makes.
“We’re almost there, boys,” Charlie Olivier said on the McLane Stadium grass during warm-ups for the Division 3 baseball state championship game Saturday morning. “Almost there.”
Fast forward two hours, after a 5-4 victory over Marine City to win Traverse City St. Francis’ first baseball state championship since 1990.
“We did it,” Olivier said aloud to himself with tears welling in his eyes while walking off the field. “I’m not even done crying yet.”
St. Francis pulled out its second one-run game at Michigan State University to win the baseball program’s second state championship.
Tony Fifarek brought a vintage TCSF hat from the 1990 postseason run as a good luck charm. His son, Gabe, is a junior outfielder who’s played in 23 games this season.
“When it got close, I got it out and put it on,” Fifarek said. “I think it worked.”
St. Francis had two close calls in recent years, losing in the 2017 and 2021 state finals. It avenged the 2021 mercy loss to Grosse Pointe Liggett by beating the Knights 4-3 in Thursday’s semifinal.
“I just feel for these coaches who have been coaching for so long,” said starting pitcher Tyler Endres, whose uncle Brian played on the 1990 team. “They’ve coached so many players, gotten so close, and we finally were able to do it for them.”
Assistant coach Tom Hitchens earned the save in the 1990 title game, and current TCSF football coach Josh Sellers was also on the squad.
“We’re always busting his chops about the 1990 state title,” Passinault said of Hitchens. “We say, ‘We’re gonna get one, one of these years, and then you’ll have to say which one.’”
It’s the first baseball state title for a northern Michigan team since Hillman in 1997.
Harrison Shepherd went from going 0 for 3 with three strikeouts Thursday to playing a huge role in Saturday’s victory.
He walked, scored a run and drove one in Saturday. He also made the game’s final defensive play, fielding a grounder by Daniel VandeVyver and throwing him out at first to set off the Gladiators’ second dogpile celebration in three days.
“I wasn’t mad at myself; I was disappointed I didn’t help the team,” Shepherd said of Thursday. “It felt nice to get on base, get that sacrifice fly, and know I helped the team win that state championship.”
Shepherd played in three state finals in his TCSF career, losing in the 2023 football and boys basketball title games, so getting this one was special.
“We lost in Ford Field, and that feeling just felt so awful,” Olivier said. “I kind of kept in the back of my mind and used that as motivation to get here.”
Endres induced five pop flies in the first two innings, setting down the Mariners 1-2-3 in both and facing the minimum through three.
Marine City didn’t put a runner on base until the fourth, but came up empty when Endres got another flyout and a strikeout to end the frame.
“He’s a dog,” sophomore pitcher Lanse Vos said of Endres. “Our pitching is the best in the state. I’ve been saying it all year. We go with Sam (Wildfong) on Thursday to Tyler. Those two, best in the state. (Tyler) was chucking the entire time, positive energy in the dugout the entire time. Such a fun guy to play with.”
Vos came on in relief of Endres in the fifth inning with two runners on base. He hit the first two batters he faced, threw a wild pitch that scored a run, and a throwing error led to two more runs.
“We seem to know what to do when things get tight,” St. Francis’ 12th-year head coach Tom Passinault said. “Lanse, we put him in a tough situation, bringing him in with (runners on) first and second, 2-0 (count). Once he got to the clean inning, I felt really good. He’s a strike thrower, and he finally got to that rhythm in the sixth and seventh inning.”
Passinault hasn’t had a losing season at St. Francis, with just one campaign of fewer than 22 victories.
Vos came back with two solid innings, allowing just one baserunner in the sixth and seventh frames.
“Shaky at the start, but my team had my back,” Vos said. “I came in that next inning, coach said, ‘All you have to do is throw strikes. Throw strikes, fill the zone.’ This team, best team in the state right here.”
St. Francis had a threat of its own in the fifth before Braxton Lesinski hit a hard line drive that was snared by shortstop Tucker Volkman and turned into a double play.
“I wasn’t nervous at all,” said Matthew Kane, the only player on either team with multiple hits. “To describe this team in one word, we’re resilient. If something doesn’t go our way, every single person keeps their head up, smiles, has fun. I trust this team in my life, and we’re state champs.”
Endres finished with 4.2 innings, three hits and two runs, striking out three. Vos tossed 2.1 frames, allowing no hits, two unearned runs and fanned two. The two hurlers have played together since their Little League days.
“Tyler Endres, man, one of the best,” Olivier said. “He stepped in so big this time, and he was just great pitcher all year round. Just a phenomenal guy to be around. And Lance Vos, he’s my son. We had a joke going on when he was a freshman and I was a junior that I adopted him from his parents. I basically think of him as my kid. He’s just one of those guys that you can just be around and never ever be sad.”
TCSF cranked out three first-inning singles, with Kane’s drive to left bringing in Tyler Thompson for the game’s first run.
TCSF went up 2-0 on another Kane RBI single, then 3-0 on an Olivier bunt single in the third after walks by Shepherd and Wildfong. A Braxton Lesinski single up the middle made it 4-0.
Shepherd’s sacrifice fly to right field brought in Thompson, who stole second and third after drawing a walk to give SF a 5-0 lead after four frames.
“I know how it feels (to) lose two, and it just feels terrible,” Shepherd said. “To finally win one. It feels like I got over the hump and all hard work that we’ve put in, we finally, finally got the reward that that we needed.
“It just means everything. We put in so much work, and all of our coaches have put in so much work. It’s so nice, just to win that last game and to go out with a win.”
The Gladiators posed for team photos afterward while holding a single, half-empty Coca-Cola plastic bottle in frame, bewildering parents, relatives and friends who didn’t know why it was there.
Coming back from the team’s regular-season finale in Clare, Kane bought the drink with the name Reagan on it.
“I put it on Eli Biggar’s (bus) seat, and then we just kind of kept in the dugout for the whole playoffs,” said Kane, a Hope College commit. “Funny story, Sam (Wildfong’s) dad actually drank the Coke because it was just sitting in his fridge.”
The Mariners — a team that successfully stole on 99 of 108 attempts on the season — didn’t try to swipe a bag all day after seeing Wildfong’s on-target warm-up throws.
“From from the moment of our first workout, we said to each other we were going to be state champs,” Kane said. “Every single person was dedicated this whole season, worked so hard, and we did it.”
Northern Michigan umpire Mitch Wilson was behind the plate as part of the crew selected to officiate the game well ahead of knowing who would be playing.
“It’s amazing. Dream come true,” Vos said. “Wanted to do it for our seniors. Ever since January, been in the SEAS (St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Middle School) gym, working, hitting every weekend. We said this is the time to do it. We thought last year, but we ended rough. This year we said, ‘This is our time.’ We came out and did it. I love this team.”
The Gladiators return basically their entire pitching staff next season. Shepherd, Olivier, Kane and Biggar are the team’s senior losses.
“I prepared all my life, trying to push myself to get to this very moment,” said Olivier, who is playing baseball at Aquinas College next year. “It paid off so much, and especially with the group of guys I’ve been with, all the seniors that put in so much hard work during the years. I just remember being a freshman and seeing what happened when we lost to Standish-Sterling in the quarterfinal, and all the seniors losing their minds, being really upset. That really drove me to want to go even farther than that, really push our limits as a team and as a class.”