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Novi captains Brett Reed, left, Andrew Abler, center, and Alex Czapski, right, hold up the Division 1 championship trophy for pictures after the Wildcats won it on Saturday, June 17, 2023. Czapski and Abler have been teammates since tee-ball as 5-year-olds. (MATTHEW B. MOWERY — MediaNews Group)
EAST LANSING — When you look back in the aftermath of a watershed event, there are always precursors, inklings of what might be about to happen — foreshadowing to use a literary term.
For the Novi Wildcats baseball team, that foreshadowing can go all the way back to 2010, when the first seeds of their first-ever baseball state title were sown, with a pair of standout 5-year-olds teaming up in tee-ball, and tearing it up.
Those two — Andrew Abler and Alex Czapski — would be teammates again through the years on travel ball teams from the Novi Heat to Legacy Baseball programs, and were two of the three captains, along with Brett Reed, who helped pilot the Wildcats to the Division 1 state title.
“I’ve been knowing that I was gonna play varsity baseball at Novi since I like was two. And I’ve known coach (Rick) Green my whole life and he’s told me that our year is going to be the big year that we go far,” Abler said after the come-from-behind semifinal win against Mattawan. “And it’s finally a great feeling that it’s actually coming true.”
Abler gutted out seven innings in that game, giving up just one earned run, to keep it close enough for his old tee-ball partner, Czapski, to deliver the game-tying hit with two outs in the bottom of the seventh, sending it to extra innings where they’d win it in 10.
“It’s the best feeling in the world. It’s completely unmatched. I mean, I love this group that we we’ve known we had this kind of a team for a long time. And the fact that it’s all coming together right now and — even the games where are our bats don’t, go we make it up with everything else. All I gotta say is I love this group and I’m so happy to be playing in two more days with them,” Czapski said. “He (Green) was just proud of me. You know, he’s, he’s coached my older brothers. Our family has been playing for this team for a long time. And it was a big moment for me and him. Because, you know, we’ve known each other for a long time.”
Those inklings from the past again.
Czapski had grown up watching his older brothers play for Green, but never had the Wildcats had a team with this much potential, a team that had the pitching depth — and the bats and defense to go with it — to go all the way. And the senior outfielder teared up when talking about what it meant to finally achieve the goal his brothers had, as well.
“I would always talk about them, you know, because when I was younger, you looked up to them. But, yeah, this feels good,” a choked-up Czapski said. “This group is so close. We’re all so tight and we’re all good friends. And not only that we got a lot of talent too, so we’re able to get it done.”
The Wildcats never doubted it for a minute that Green was right in his assertion that they could contend — not even when things didn’t go so well in the middle of the season, and they finished fifth in the KLAA’s utterly stacked West Division, behind rival Northville, and the three Livingston County schools — Hartland, Howell and Brighton.
And they had to finish it off without their starting shortstop, senior Boden Fernsler, who missed the last portion of the playoff run with injury.
“I’ve been I’ve been telling these guys from day one, we should be thinking about nothing but the state championship. Now when things were things weren’t always great during that season, but that’s life,” Green said. “That’s life you know, things were kind of going crazy there even some some things going on in a dugout and stuff. We got rid of that, the kids who believed in themselves, they helped each other I mean, they believe in each other. They love each other. And this is as simple as that.”
They knew that if they could get past their perpetual postseason stumbling block — Novi Detroit Catholic Central — in districts, they could make a run, something Czapski and Abler believed in enough to put it on record in a video interview with the school’s public relations staff. But they were cautious enough in naming their group chat throughout the season, amending its name as they went, not wanting to get ahead of themselves.
“At the beginning of the season season, it (the chat) started out as ‘district champs.’ Like I said, we were taking it one step at a time and when we won the district renamed that ‘regional champs,’ won the regional and then ‘state champs baby,’” the third captain, Brett Reed said. “It (the state title) was our goal at the beginning of the year. We just kind of took it one step at a time. At first, district champion was our goal goal then regional champs and then state champs and we knew once we won regionals, even districts we knew we had it, and we just believed in each other got it done.”
It helped that they had a pitching staff that featured college-bound players in Abler (Harvard), Brendon Bennett (Clemson) and Czapski (Grand Valley), along with Thad Lawler and Brett Reed, who all had nine or more appearances on the mound and more than 20 innings pitched through the season.
But the last piece of the puzzle was the return to health of sophomore Uli Fernsler, who was limited to just 25.2 innings pitched before the final weekend, coming back from a knee injury. The year before, it had been the freshman helping hold things together while Bennett and Abler spend time on the shelf with injuries.
And he didn’t even necessarily know how good he was, until he burst onto the stage over the finals weekend, picking up the semifinal win in relief, then throwing a complete game in the championship.
“I think he knows it now, but he didn't even know last year and he was our No. 1 pitcher when those guys went down. So he's got a lot of varsity experience and a lot of wins. He's just incredible, incredible — incredible person, incredible family and he comes from,” said Green, who’d been pounding the table all weekend long for college scouts to start to take an interest in the young, lanky lefty. “He's our man. And I mean, he's the guy that I like to go to, that I can really trust. Like I said, calm, cool, collected, and he knows he's the man now — I think he knows. He's the best.”
But when did Green know?
Another of those inklings, those premonitions. Another foreshadowing.
“Oh God, I saw him pitch one pitch in the bullpen last year, coming off fall workouts. And I said ‘This guy is gonna be good,’” Green said.
The rest is history.
