Strong pitching staff leads Novi baseball to first Final Four spot in 50 years

David Goricki

The Detroit News

Novi will be making its first Final Four appearance in 50 years when it plays Mattawan in a baseball state semifinal game at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at Michigan State University's McLane Stadium.

The Novi-Mattawan winner will play the winner of the 9 a.m. semifinal game between Woodhaven and Macomb Dakota in the Division 1 state championship game on Saturday.

Novi — 30-8 and unranked — last reached this stage of the season back in 1973 when it lost to Blissfield in the Class C state championship game. Mattawan — 25-11-1 and unranked — is making its first Final Four appearance in program history.

Novi is a pleasant surprise since most fans were expecting Northville to be playing in East Lansing after being ranked No. 3 for the majority of the season, including a No. 1 spot at one point. Novi dropped a pair of close games to Kensington Lakes Activities Association rival Northville during the regular season (4-3 and 1-0) before avenging the losses with a 6-2 win in a regional semifinal last week. It was Novi’s first regional championship since 2000, which was also Rick Green’s first year as the program’s head coach.

Novi went on to defeat Hartland, 4-0, in the regional final on Saturday, followed by a 12-2 win over No. 7 Battle Creek Lakeview in a state quarterfinal. “Our last regional title was back in 2000, so it’s been a while,” Green said. “This is a thrill for me, but I’m just so happy for our kids who have worked so hard and put so much time into it. I’ve always believed in them. At the beginning of the year, I told them we’re going to make great memories and we made a lot of them, but we want to make a couple more.

“Getting past Northville was huge. They beat us a couple of games by one run, but I knew that we had the team that could pull it off, and getting sophomore pitcher Uli Fernsler back really helped us out in the playoffs (worked final three innings in win over Northville).” Novi’s strength is its pitching, led by the 1-2 combination of Harvard-bound right-handed senior Andrew Abler and 6-foot-2 junior left-hander Brendon Bennett, a Clemson commit. Abler is 7-3 with a 1.02 ERA and Bennett is 6-2 with a 2.52 ERA.

Green is thrilled to have several more talented pitchers on the staff, including Grand Valley-bound left-hander Alex Czapski (5-1, 1.72 ERA), Fernsler (3-0, 0.60 WHIP, 44 strikeouts, 25⅔ innings), junior Thad Lawler (7-0, 0.74 ERA) and closer Brett Reed (five saves). “We have a 1.70 team earned run average," Green said. "Andrew Abler, our senior, has a great fastball, hits 89, 90, and his slider is probably his best pitch other than his fastball. Brendon Bennett is a power pitcher who has a fastball reaching 93, along with a tremendous breaking pitch and a nice two-seamer as well.”

Abler has worked 48 innings, striking out 61 with 16 walks. Bennett has worked 44 innings and has 74 strikeouts and 29 walks. “We have a great 1-2 punch in Abler and Bennett but have other guys who have pitched really well for us, including Uli (6-3 left-hander) who has been throwing really well and was key in a couple of our victories, one against Northville and another against Hartland. He throws 82 to 85 but has tremendous movement on every single pitch he has. “Alex Czapski started against Lakeview and has thrown the most innings on our team, 48⅔ innings. He threw three innings and then Brett Reed pitched the final four innings, came in when we were down 2-1 and gave up just one hit and a walk.”

Obviously, Abler and Bennett have enjoyed the ride. “It’s been pretty cool,” Abler said of the tournament run. “I kind of knew we had this feeling that we were going to beat Northville because we lost to them by one both games and we were really on a hot streak, our bats were hot. We knew if we played a good game, we could beat them, so we all showed up. You could tell something was different and we showed up and made amazing plays on defense.”