The St. Mary baseball team has come upon a way to lessen summer traffic in Leelanau County: Capture the attention of sports fans, advance deep into the state tournament, then play a quarterfinal game in Gaylord.

Pitcher Raymond Platts

“I’m not sure there was a lot of traffic in Leelanau County,” said Eagles’ coach Steve Plamondon while reflecting on his squad’s 7-2 loss to Rudyard Tuesday. “We had a huge fan base there.”

St. Mary, which finished the season with a 28-7 record, could not put together another final inning rally in the loss, instead leaving the bases loaded in the seventh on a grounder for the final out in a storybook season.

The Eagles had come back in four of their five postseason wins, and seemed to hold the potential to pull off another miracle against Rudyard. After all, they kept getting runners on base despite a strong performance by recovered Bulldog pitcher Craig Wallis.

As fast as the Rudyard defense would open up the door for St. Mary, Wallis would shut it. St. Mary stranded 10 batters and Wallis picked off two more on first base. Both teams managed just four hits.

“It was not as bad as the score indicated. We had our chances,” said Plamondon.
Rudyard scored twice in the second inning largely due to two errors in the outfield, added one in the fourth inning, and padded the lead with two runs in the fifth and seventh innings.

The Bulldogs final two runs came on a bad bounce on a grounder to first, Plamondon said, which seemed to draw confidence from St. Mary.

Joe Rexroat doubled in St. Mary’s first run, sending home Kienan Sutton, who had singled earlier.

In the bottom of the seventh, a Rudyard error put Michael Kalchik on and Jeremy Peplinski was hit by a pitch. A walk and another error allowed a run to score, and loaded up the bases with two outs.

But the hard-throwing Wallis, who was injured for all of the regular season, closed the door with a groundout. Wallis suffered a rotator cuff injury that doctors at first believed would need surgery. Eventually, though, he recovered through physical therapy in time for District play. Tuesday was his first start, and he made the most of it.

“Their pitcher did a great job. Give him credit,” said Plamondon.

But so did Eagles pitcher Ray Platts, who allowed just 3 earned runs. He’s usually backed up by a stingy St. Mary defense that never seemed to recover from its first-inning miscues.

“Ray kept us in the game, and gave us an opportunity to win it,” said Plamondon.

In time, he told players after the game, the quarterfinal loss with be just a footnote in a season full of memories. Included were Cherryland, District and Regional titles.

“It was a terrific season. When we reflect back, it was a very special year,” said Plamondon.