Baseball Turnaround

Brendan Manor, Staff

Past baseball teams at Lake Shore are not as memorable as people want them to be. However, currently, the baseball team is 8-5. With big wins over Grosse Pointe North at Comerica Park and even beating Center Line 19-2. They also have the seventh most runs per game in D1 class baseball with 9.9 runs per game as of April 23rd. 

This team has aspirations and goals they want to meet and with their talent, they should be able to meet these goals. 

“Win the Mac Gold for sure and beat Lakeview,” said Dante Messina, a junior and shortstop at Lake Shore. 

The baseball team played Lakeview in a scrimmage before the season and lost, so they need to work more for that goal. With dominant wins over other teams in the MAC like Warren Woods Tower and Center Line, winning the MAC Gold is within their reach. The team’s mentality is more winning and positive now with this hot streak. 

“We always want to keep a winning mentality, so that every game we go into we know we can beat whoever it is,” said Andrew Creson, a junior pitcher and outfielder on the baseball team. 

“That confidence and motivation makes us play even better,” said Ayden Heuer, a junior and Pitcher at Lake Shore.

This type of thinking is good for every team because you always need to have the thought to beat whoever you play.

This winning streak comes with a rocky start to the season. The team’s last coach, Pete Khrota, resigned and the players weren’t very fond of him.

“Firing Pete was probably the best thing we could have done. We beat a runner-up for the state championship with our new coach and him having confidence in us makes us confident in ourselves,” said Messina. Khrota’s resignation definitely had a positive effect on the team’s play and confidence.

Brendan Osantowski, a former student at Lake Shore who went to Rochester University for baseball and was formerly the JV baseball coach before the resignation of Khrota, has been promoted to head coach and is happy to be here.

“It’s a pretty surreal moment…It was important to me to teach the game the right way to younger players. After my playing career was over, I wanted to come back to this program and assist in any way that I could…In my short time as varsity coach, it’s been an amazing experience,” said Osantowski. 

Osantowki obviously loves the game of baseball and wants to be here to help this program.

One reason why teams are so good is because of team morale, which Osantowski takes very seriously. 

“One of my coaching philosophies is to keep the team morale high. You can have all the talent in the world, but if you don’t play as a team or play selfishly, you’ll never win as a team. Right now, I think we’re doing a good job of playing as a team,” said Osantowski. 

This is definitely a driving factor of why the team is winning and Osantowski wants them to keep it up. 

With the change in coaches, the team’s performance and confidence and strategies have also changed. 

“There is definitely a new dynamic on the field, especially in the way we practice, so yeah we’re feeling more confident now,” said Creson.

With this turnaround for Lake Shore baseball,  Shorians could be seeing a new era for baseball. Hopefully, the boys can keep it up.