New Lothrop had plans to upend Beal City in its first appearance in a baseball state title game.
Mission accomplished.
Grant Steinborn scattered seven hits over seven innings, walking two batters and fanning four, in leading his New Lothrop team to a 5-0 Division 4 state championship win June 14 at Michigan State University.
The Hornets finished at 34-6 for their first state title and dashed the hopes of Beal City, which finished 36-4.
“We came on at the right time this year,” said New Lothrop coach Keith Villano, who has a four-year record of 114-25-2. “We’ve had a good-hitting team all year. We work and work on it and work on it and go with a certain approach. We have good athletes. I’m very blessed. They get on any way they can.”
The Hornets have had success in various sports like football, wrestling, and baseball. “There’s no question we have high expectations for all the sports,” Villano said. “We have great coaches in our district. We have a couple of our guys that won a state title with wrestling. We don’t hang banners in the gym unless it’s a state title.”
The Aggies had been hoping to get the title after faltering in the final game a year ago.
But Steinborn and his teammates got the job done for the Hornets. Quentin Taylor had two hits, an RBI, and scored a run, and Brodie Bennett had two hits and an RBI, plus a walk, from his No. 9 spot in the order.
“The first [title] for baseball is a great feeling,” Steinborn said. “We did our coach’s philosophy, which is to throw strikes and put the ball in play and play defense.”
Steinborn entered the finals with a 13-1 record and a 1.10 ERA. “He’s a very durable pitcher,” Villano said. “There’s no question his mechanics are sound. Grant’s a gamer. There’s no question in my mind that he was going to go out, throw strikes, and let my defense take care of things. We have a very good defensive team as well. It worked out. He worked out of some jams and was able to shut them out.”
“We thought it was going to be a closer game,” Steinborn said. “We had every confidence in the world we were going to come home with this victory. When you get outs as often as I was, your confidence builds and builds. My location was on, and I could mix on any pitch I wanted to.”
The Hornets had to hang on for dear life against Glen Lake in a 3-1 semifinal victory on June 13. “It feels good, I knew we could do it,” Villano said after that game. “The bottom line is we still have one more game to play. We can’t be satisfied with this. We have to move on. [Beal City] is a great team. They’ve been here before. They have players that play hard. We’ll grind it out and see what happens.”
Cameron Pope started the semifinal game and took the win.
Steinborn came on in the seventh but had a major scare with the tying runs on base. “I had a lot of confidence in [Steinborn],” said Pope. “I have a lot of confidence. I knew his control was going to be fine.”
Glen Lake’s Austin Odziana hit a line shot down the left field line that would have scored two runs, but it was inches foul.
“The almost-double wasn’t a double,” Villano said. “The baseball gods were looking out for us. We came out and got a quick win. It wasn’t easy. You always need those breaks to go your way. [In the final] we’ll throw strikes, put the ball in play, and play fundamental baseball.
“Not too many people hit it that hard off of Grant,” said outfielder Taylor. “When that kid did it, I was a little nervous. I was scared. He struck him out, yeah.”
“I thought we pitched well,” Glen Lake coach Kris Herman said. “We did the things we wanted to do coming into the game. We pitched well, and we played good defense. We generally can scrape for some runs here or there. Today we never got ourselves into a position where we could manufacture anything. But we did have our opportunities, no question about it.
“They got two big hits when they needed them, and we couldn’t get those hits when we needed to have them.”
Beal City “is usually pretty good,” Taylor said the day before the final game. “I think we can beat them. We’re pretty confident. We have the attitude we need to win.”
About 24 hours later, Taylor proved to be right on the money with his prediction. “[Coach] told us if we put the ball in play we could win this game,” he said after the victory.
The Hornets only outhit the Aggies 10-7, but the Hornets were able to string together their hits more effectively. “They usually do some sneaky things on the basepaths, but we didn’t allow them to do that,” Taylor said.
New Lothrop had one run in the second and three big ones in the fourth to take control over the Aggies. “When we got ahead, I think they got a little down and started making some errors,” Taylor said. “They couldn’t get back up.”
Villano admitted he had a “great feeling” coming into this season that it could be something special. “It was a very difficult [run] through the tournament,” he said. “We had to go through a lot of tough teams. These guys went out there. They’re a gritty team, they’re not going to give up. They don’t give up. They don’t let the little things bother them. They keep going. They pick each other up.”
Villano, Steinborn said, “always stands calm and supports us through everything. He doesn’t freak out. That helps us play better.”