Powerful St. Clair deals with a season on pause
This was the year for St. Clair baseball.
With a veteran team built around a pitching staff that included a University of Michigan recruit, this was the year the Saints were poised to make noise, perhaps even match the 2011 St. Clair club that won the state Division 2 championship.
“Our team, because we have so many seniors, was really looking forward to this season,” coach Denny White said Monday.
But the COVID-19 pandemic has put on hold the dreams of the Saints and other teams.
There are no games to play. There are no practices scheduled.
The Saints wait, like everyone else, hoping that steps endorsed by health officials will “flatten the curve” of coronavirus infections and signal a return to normalcy. “It’s so emotional,” White said. St. Clair has a quintessential high school team. The MAC White Division team’s nucleus is comprised of youngsters who grew up and played multiple sports together.
The Saints returned nine players — eight starters plus another who was part of the pitching rotation.
Ryan Zimmer, a 6-foot-5 righthander, is headed to Michigan.
Captains Austin Schweiger and Brady Gleason are going to Saginaw Valley State and Madonna, respectively — Schweiger for baseball and Gleason for football.
Gleason was the quarterback for a playoff team last fall.
Zimmer, Schweiger and Gleason were among five baseball players on the basketball team that brought St. Clair a share
of the MAC Gold Division championship and captured the MAC Blue/Gold tournament crown.
They missed the first week of baseball practice because the Saints were involved in a district tournament.
Little did anyone know on evening of Wednesday, March 11, when the Saints lost a district semifinal to Richmond, that a cascade of cancellations in the ensuing 48 hours would halt everything from the NBA to the NCAA basketball tournaments to every prep sport.
“We were there,” White said, recalling that pitchers had begun to throw in January and the Saints had completed tryouts before the shutdown happened.
“The team had been picked. We told (the basketball players) to take four days off and come to practice Monday. But then we never saw them.”
President Trump announced Sunday that federal guidelines for preventing COVID-19 infections
were extended to April 30.
If Michigan schools follow suit — the original MHSAA mandate called for no sports activities through April 13 — and institutions remain closed until at least the end of the month, the baseball season could be imperiled, White said.
“We need about 10 days (of practice) to get ready,” White said.
One of the coach’s primary worries is with pitchers.
“We’re really concerned about their arms,” White said.
“If we were to somehow go back, that’s the scariest part. If you haven’t been throwing, you’re starting all over again. You’re not going to throw many pitches (in competition).”
Zimmer has family members, including his father, who can catch his pitches during the shutdown.
“On nice days, he’s outside,” White said.
Several other Saints also have parents or siblings who can play catch, White said.
But there’s another issue. “Getting somewhere to do that is a problem,” White said.
St. Clair was ranked No. 11 in the state coaches’ preseason poll.
Four MAC Red teams were ranked in Division 1: Dakota No. 3; Stevenson No. 9; Romeo No. 15, and Eisenhower No. 16.
Richmond, part of the Blue Water Area Conference, was No. 14 in Division 3.
White keeps in touch with the team captains.
“They’re pretty flat right now,” he said of the Saints players.
White noted that several important events of the school year, including spring break trips and proms, have been canceled or are in jeopardy, an especially disappointing development for seniors.
“There’s a sense of loss, a sense of grief,” White said.
White thought about a tradition the Saints have of congratulating and thanking seniors for their contributions to the program.
It always happens on the field, after the final game of the season — whenever that occurs.
“We don’t know when we’ll be together again,” he said. “A ‘group text’ doesn’t really do it (justice).”