John Raffel
Sports Scene
Nouvel Catholic Central had to go through Bishop Foley Catholic in its bid to make the Division 3 state baseball finals and fell short on June 15 with a 6-2 setback.
The Panthers’ season ended at 29-10. They had advanced to the finals with 3-2 and 5-1 wins over Shepherd and Pinconning in the regionals and 3-1 over Frankenmuth in the quarterfinals.
A 5-run second inning put the game away for the Ventures, who would go on to win the state title.
Joe Buchalski started for Nouvel and was relieved in the second by his brother, senior Josh Buchalski, who went the final 5 1/3 innings.
“We couldn’t get some key hits when we needed them. They hit the ball well. Nothing to hang out heads about. We had a great year,” said Nouvel coach Dave Horny. “We’ll just build on it. These young men have shown what they can do in sports. I think they can be successful. It’s an honor to coach these young men.”
Horny was pleased that Josh Buchalski was able to put in some strong innings.
Nouvel had nine hits, with two apiece from Mitch Jacqmain, Jon Albosta, and Mike Albosta.
“We came out and battled today,” said Bishop Foley senior center fielder Luke Ortel. “We knew our bats would come around.”
Foley was able to win despite not having coach Buster Sunde, who was ejected in the 1-0 quarterfinal win over Hillsdale. Although not able to be with the team during its semifinal game against Nouvel, he was in the neighborhood.
I stayed off the grounds; it’s unfortunate,” Sunde said. “In 1,500 games I’ve gotten kicked out four or five times; this was a total travesty….something that should not have happened…it was about that umpire on that day. I’m still unhappy about it. The state didn’t do anything about it.”
Garrett Schilling was the winning pitcher, and he helped his own cause with two hits and three RBI.
We played through it,” Sundae said. “Garrett pitched a tremendous game.”
Horny was pleased that his team got to the Final Four.
I knew we’d have opportunity to do that [go all the way],” he said. “We have some very gifted athletes. I knew going in this was a part of their goal. I’m not saying I’m surprised because I’m not. They’re outstanding young gentlemen. We worked for what we got. It shows a lot about their work ethic.
When we went on spring break and took 11 days off, we had to start over. We started improving.”
“We came a long way these past four years, even this year,” Joe Buchalski said. “We knew we had talent to come this far; we got a lot better throughout the year. I’m just happy for these guys. There’s a lot of seniors on the team. It was a good year to finish out strong. It was a tough day, I guess.”
The Foley team members “don’t make lot of mistakes,” he added. “They take advantage of opportunities.”