Falcons Come Out on Top in City Baseball Tourney

After ’s Justin Williams reached base in the top of the seventh inning, Randy Kuzdak ripped a ball through the infield, scoring Williams from second and breaking a scoreless tie with in the title game of the storied City Tournament Saturday afternoon on Edsel's turf.

The softball and baseball tournaments pitted teams from all four Dearborn schools against each other. In the boys' semifinal ballgames, DC went up against , while Edsel played . Divine Child also .

In the finals of Edsel and Divine Child, DC teammate Nick Posh doubled in Kudzak three pitches later, and pushed the Falcons' lead to 2-0.

DC fireballer Eric Haase came in during the bottom half of the final inning and closed the door on the Thunderbirds, earning the save and preserving the victory for starting pitcher, Kyle Bloom, who went six strong innings.

“We’ve been struggling lately,” Bloom said. “To be able to grind out a win like this today does a lot for our confidence.”

The outcome and title, admittedly, do little to impact the division or league outcomes of any of the four clubs, but there is something special about the tournament—and it's not lost on any of the players or coaches.

“I think it means a lot to earn the respect of the city,” Bloom said. “We definitely want to win, and it feels really good that we were able to do that today. It was tough though, Edsel played really well.”

Falcons skipper Tony DeMare agrees.

“It’s a community tournament,” DeMare said. “I know it’s something our kids look forward to and enjoy, and it’s something we take a lot of pride in. We approach this every year and get excited about playing in it. Today, Edsel Ford gave us everything we could handle. They’ve done that the last few years, and there’s no doubt they gave us everything we could’ve asked for today.”

The DC victory came on the heels of an 11-3 win over Dearborn High in the tourney opening game—a contest Pioneers coach, Matt Schleif, says his team can learn from and apply over the course of the rest of the season.

“This tournament is such a great tradition,” Schleif said. “It’s tough to play a team as talented as Divine Child, but it’s something we look forward to every year, and something we can learn from as a team.

"We have to take the right approach, though," he added. "If we do that, we’re going to learn from this game for sure. We know when we play any other team in our league that we’ve already played one of the best teams in the state. That’s something positive we can take away from a game like this.”

The host school advanced to the title game thanks to a 19-3 thumping of Fordson in the second of the three-game tournament.