Muskies rally again to win NABF World Series

The Beecher Muskies may have been down at times in the National Amateur Baseball Federation World Series this weekend, but they were never out.

Trailing the Berea Blue Sox 6-1 after five innings of Sunday’s NABF World Series title game, the Muskies piled on nine runs the rest of the way to overcome a late five-run deficit for the second game in a row, winning 10-6 to claim the national championship for the first time since 2010.

With 17 players seeing the field on Sunday – and several more ready to go – Muskies manager Fred LeSage said that the willingness of each player to do whatever they could to help get the win is what allowed the team to end the season on a high note.

“It’s a 27-man roster and almost everyone contributed in some way,” he said. “There’s no give-in. It’s just keep going, keep going.”

After the Muskies had rallied in the sixth to make it a 6-5 game and tacked on another in the seventh to tie things up, it was the bench that sparked the four-run rally in the eighth to put the game away.

Zac Ruzich, who came in earlier as a pinch hitter, started the inning off with a single and was pinch run for by Taylor Fuerst. After Andy Gaytan was hit by a pitch, Tyler Brody, who entered as a pinch runner at DH a few innings earlier, singled up the middle to drive in Fuerst for what proved to be the game-winning run.

“It feels amazing,” Brody, a Beecher native and 2019 Beecher High School graduate, said. “Helping the boys out to get a win, and all these guys worked hard throughout this season. To capitalize on the hard work we put in felt awesome.”

The Muskies kept on rolling in the eighth, getting an RBI double from AJ Le and a two-run single from Patrick Carmody to pull ahead.

Le was awarded a plaque after the game as the NABF World Series batting champion. He hit .545 (12 for 22) in the six games in the tournament while also driving in 12 runs.

On the mound, the Muskies’ pitching was depleted a bit in their sixth game in five days. But 27 outs had to come from somewhere.

Zack Millsap got the start, allowing five hits and two runs over four innings. Alex Rodriguez and Camden Kearney each got an out in the fifth. But with the Blue Sox starting to pull ahead, LeSage turned to ace Bryce Shafer, who had thrown 77 pitches to pick up the win in Saturday’s semifinal, with two outs in the fifth.

Shafer got 12 more huge outs as the Muskies climbed back into the game before exiting with two outs and two runners on the the ninth after tweaking his hamstring. Ben Carlile came in, and after walking a batter to load the bases, induced a fly ball that was caught on the run by Gaytan in right to end the game.

Shafer was named Co-MVP of the World Series along with catcher Marty Coyle.

“I’ve been playing the game for a long time, so at this point it’s for other people,” Shafer said. “I really wanted to win this for Fred, for [coach Todd] Sippel. These guys have been doing it for so long.”

Coyle is one of the few remaining players from the 2010 team and only one to see action both then and now, although 2010 MVP Brandon Dubois was up in the pen in the ninth Sunday. Coyle caught every inning of the tournament while also going 11 for 24 with five RBIs.

“We’ve been here so many times and we’ve made it to the championship and lost,” he said. “So many heartbreaks. When that ball gets caught at the end there, it’s just like ‘oh my god, we just won this.”

But for as long as Coyle has been with the team, it’s not possible to have been a Muskie longer than LeSage. He was a player on the first team in 1978 and stayed on the roster until taking over as manager in 1994. He now has his second national championship.

“I think I actually appreciate this one more in some ways,” LeSage said. “It was such a whirlwind that first time, I didn’t know. I’ve been to a lot of these now, and it’s hard to explain how it feels... There’s a lot of work that goes in to get to the point where we’re even playing in a world series. This payoff is probably is probably worth the 15 years of labor to get to this point.”