‘THIS ONE’S FOR TOM’
Novi claims first title with victory over Woodhaven, winning one for their superfan; ‘This is so special’
EAST LANSING >> Tom would’ve loved this. One of Novi athletics’ biggest supporters, Tom Marcus, passed away unexpectedly on Friday, a day before the Wildcats baseball team played the biggest game in program history, in the Division 1 baseball championship against Woodhaven.
So some of the tears after the Wildcats’ 8-3 win on Saturday morning were for joy, at a journey finished and a dream come true, as Novi claimed its first-ever state title — while some of the tears were for Tom, for a life well lived and the completion of a different sort of journey.
Yeah, Tom would’ve loved this.
“Oh God, this is so special. And I’m just so — I’m so happy for all of our past players. … We lost our big No. 1 fan, Tom Marcus,” said coach Rick Green, who teared up talking about the 85-year-old Marcus, who attended as many of the school’s events as he could, giving out his ‘kindness cards’ and waving the Wildcat flag. “This was dedicated to Tom Marcus. This is so special, though. I’m just thrilled for the kids.”
Those kids were led by sophomore pitcher Uli Fernsler, who struck out eight, and never was really in any trouble until he had a bit of difficulty getting the last two outs in the seventh.
“This is amazing. The best weekend of my life. … I’m going to look at it (the championship banner) every day, if I can,” he said. “Once we got the bats going, I knew we were going to be very tough to beat.”
While the pitching staff carried Novi (328) for much of the year, the bats have — with the exception of the cold blip in the semifinals — been on fire in the playoffs.
The Wildcats (32-8) got two runners on in each of the first two innings, but didn’t get anything across until the third, when Thad Lawler’s two-out, bases-loaded single up the middle drove in two for an early 2-0 lead.
Brendon Bennett’s flare single into left scored a third run, and forced a Woodhaven pitching change. Andrew Kummer’s RBI single two batters later forced a second pitching change, then Brett Reed greeted the new pitcher with an RBI single, making it 5-0.
Woodhaven got on the board in the bottom of the fourth on a misplayed of a bunt by Jacob Wright.
Novi padded the lead to 6-1 in the sixth with a Bennett infield single, a pair of walks and a pair of wild pitches, forcing another Woodhaven pitching change, tacking on two more on Brett Reed’s two-run double.
“Just incredible. It’s incredible feeling. We all believed in each other, were loose the whole time. Uli, he got the job done. He’s amazing. He’s a great pitcher, one of the best I’ve ever seen in my entire life. And it was just great to be with the boys the whole time and get this win for the state championship,” Brett Reed said, noting that the Wildcats never doubted Green when he told them that state title or bust should be their goal. “Oh, heck no, heck no, we knew we had the team. We know we could do it. And we’re just we’re just glad we were able to get the job done.”
Andrew Phillips’ infield single got one run in for Woodhaven in the seventh, then Michael Budai drove in another run, but Reed threw out a runner trying to steal for the second out, and Fernsler got a strikeout looking to close out the championship, sending the Wildcats streaming on to the field to celebrate.
“It’s surreal. I mean, today, I just knew everyone on our team was gonna contribute. And everyone just knew like, we’re at the
hotel last night. And everyone was just just having a great time everyone was working each other for the team. And today we just had this feeling as soon as we got here that it was going to be great. And it’s been one of the best days of my life. This is this is a dream. A dream,” said Andrew Abler, who started the semifinal game on the mound, but was the designated hitter on Saturday.
“This entire run has not really made sense in my mind yet. Like, I don’t really have emotion right now because I like it’s hard to believe. Like it’s gonna take a few days to actually come down to earth and like, realize that we actually just won the state championship.”
For some of the players, like Thursday’s hitting hero Alex Czapski, it was the culmination of a family effort, following his older brothers in the Novi uniform.
“I would always talk about them, you know, because when I was younger, you looked up to them. But, yeah, this feels good,” Czapski said. “This group is so close. We’re all so tight and we’re all good friends. And not only that, we’ve got a lot of talent too, so we’re able to get it done.”