Bay City continues to produce collegiate baseball players, including those at the Division I level.
Timothy McDonald, coach of Bay City Western, could attest to that.
He’s got two players going to Division I schools. They are Brett Adcock, a left-handed pitcher who signed with University of Michigan, and Grant Miller, an infielder who inked a national letter of intent with Western Michigan University.
“Both are three-year varsity players for me,” McDonald said. “Adcock, early on, you could see he was a talent. He has a power arm. He’s certainly a power pitcher. He’s certainly worked on his changeups. He’s someone they looked at in his junior year.
“He had offers from several colleges. But he had his dream to play at Michigan.”
For this season, Adcock has started out 3-0 with just one earned run. He has 35 strikeouts in 18 innings. He was 5-1 last season with a 1.54 ERA, and he allowed only 26 hits.
Miller “is a great story,” McDonald said. “He’s more of what I call a late bloomer. He’s worked diligently the last couple of years. He’s gotten bigger and stronger. He’s worked at it.”
WMU is looking at Miller for second base, but he also plays outfield. He’s a player whom McDonald hasn’t had to worry about motivating. “He’ll do whatever he’s asked to do.”
Miller, a shortstop for Western’s Saginaw Valley League co-champion team, batted .379 with 36 runs scored and 27 RBI, plus six doubles and two triples.
Another former Western player, Chad Jasman, signed at Kansas State but is now at Michigan.
Another alumnus, Grant Bridgewater, has signed with Lewis University in Illinois, a Division II school.
Bridgewater, a catcher, came back from Tommy John surgery and batted .404 with 34 runs and 34 RBI with seven doubles and three triples.
John Glenn High School’s Luke Scharich is going to Oakland University’s Division I program, and Zach Olszewski is going to to Bethune-Cookman University, a Division I program in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Scharich, a pitcher, has a 2.44 ERA in 14.1 innings of work so far this season and has one win to his credit this season. He also has 20 strikeouts. Last season, the lefty had an 8-3 mark with a 2.52 ERA. He struck out 80 batters in 58.3 innings and batted .353.
Olszewski was all-state last season as a pitcher and also stood out as a catcher and infielder for the state runner-up team. He had a 9-1 record with four saves and an ERA of 0.69 with 77 strikeouts in 71 innings. He also had a .339 average with 16 doubles, two home runs, and 28 runs scored.
McDonald acknowledges that Bay City seems to be a good area for producing Division I talent. “There’s very good baseball here,” he said. “We have good feeder programs. We have some baseball facilities you can go to. It goes in cycles. But we’ve got a lot of quality players right now.”