By John Raffel
Two state titles in a row were not to be for the Mount Pleasant baseball team.
St. Mary’s Preparatory won the title with a 4-1 win over Mt. Pleasant in the Division 2 title game at Michigan State University on June 13. The loss ended the Oilers’ season at 27-13.
The Oilers were red-hot coming into the final. With 12 losses, their regular season had not been overwhelmingly impressive. They finished 9-5 in the Saginaw Valley League for third place. But they stormed through the postseason in impressive style to get to MSU. They defeated Standish-Sterling, 3-0, and Petoskey, 6-0, to get to the quarterfinal round. An 8-0 win over Birch Run got them within two games of a second-straight title.
The shutout magic continued with a 9-0 blanking over Adrian in the semifinal game. Mount Pleasant had a 15-3 hits lead and took advantage of three Adrian errors.
Logan Buczkowski got the win for the Oilers in six innings of work, allowing three hits and three, walks while fanning six batters. Cameron Mitchell pitched the last inning and struck out all three batters.
Kalebb Perry contributed three hits and two RBI to the Oiler attack, while Maxwell Trucks and Hunter Buczkowski each had two hits and an RBI. Noah Ingram contributed one hit and two RBI, and Obie Ricumstrict and Daniel Keller each had a hit and an RBI.
Mount Pleasant got out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first against St. Mary’s in the title game. Trucks’ RBI single got his team on the board.
Despite three errors from St. Mary’s, the Oilers were unable to score the rest of the game. St. Mary’s scored on a walk, a stolen base, and two wild pitches in the first inning. They added two runs in the second and an insurance run in the fifth.
“The first run we gave them with those wild pitches, it tied it up and it stopped our momentum,” Epple said. “The big thing offensively is we did not hit the ball with men on. We got under the ball.”
Both teams left seven men on base.
The Oilers only had five hits, including two from senior infielder Ryan Lucksted. St. Mary’s pitcher Greg Loukinen was sharp, allowing one run on five hits in seven innings, fanning seven and walking only one batter.
“I’d say definitely it was the most fun season I’ve ever had,” Lucksted said. “This group of guys was great. I’d do it all over again if I could.”
Hunter Buczkowski went the first four innings for the Oilers, allowing four runs on five hits. He struck out five but had three wild pitches. Mitchell went the final two innings.
St. Mary’s left-hander was too dominant for Mount Pleasant. “We’ve seen a couple of [left-handers],” Epple said. “The one we saw against Cadillac gave us a few fits for four to five innings. I knew this game would be more challenging for us. This guy was pretty good. He walked one guy and that was in the last inning. He made good pitches on the first pitch. He was well-coached coming into this game.”
Mount Pleasant wanted to get to Loukinen quickly and did score the first run.
“It was 1-1, and then they scored two in the bottom of the second,” Epple said. “Those were two big runs for them.”
“It was the lack of our offense coming through,” Epple said.
Most of Mount Pleasant’s team is returning. The Oilers only graduated four from this year’s team, including Lucksted.
“I reminded the seniors this was not a very deep group, and they’ve improved,” Epple said. “Lucksted is a kid who worked his tail off, worked himself into the lineup. I thanked the seniors and said ‘best of luck.’ But the sophomores and juniors now see what it takes to win. Offensively, we didn’t do as well as we should have today. You have to give credit to their pitcher.”
But it was quite a postseason, despite the state final loss. “Every postseason game, we were focused the whole game, and we were up for the whole game,” Lucksted said.
“I’m very happy the way we put it together when we needed to,” Epple said. “We came here to win everything. [Title day] is a little bit of a downer. However, overall, it was very encouraging. We’ll come back fighting next year, and we’ll do better.”
Mount Pleasant is noted for having a strong summer baseball program, and Epple pointed out that his players would be getting back to work almost immediately.
“There’s not much rest for the wicked,” he said.