MUSKEGON – No matter what happens in the upcoming playoffs, the 2023 Muskegon Clippers will go down in the record books.
They are not only the most successful Clippers team to ever take the field – they are the greatest regular season team in the history of the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League.
The Clippers had to play the final two games of the regular season on Sunday, and in a conventional sense, there wasn’t much to play for.
They clinched the North Division championship on Saturday, guaranteeing home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs. Sunday’s doubleheader against the second-place Lima Locos could have no impact on the final standings, regardless of the outcome.
But the Clippers were playing to make history, and they went out and accomplished their goals. Their 4-0 victory in Game 1 guaranteed that they would finish with the highest winning percentage of any team in league history. Their exciting 15-4 win in Game 2, which was actually a come-from-behind victory, left the Clippers in a tie with two other teams for the most regular season wins in league history.
[1]The amazing fact is that the Muskegon Clippers, who had limited success in their first five years in the GLSCL, finished with an incredible 33-5 record, and it will probably be a long time before any team in the league comes close to matching that.
They finished with a shiny .868 winning percentage. Lima, the next best team in the North Division, finished a full eight games behind Muskegon.
“There’s not enough words to describe what these guys have done for 38 games,” said second-year Clippers manager Logan Fleener. “It doesn’t matter what the score is, they are always ready to go after it. It’s been almost stupid how fun its’s been to watch them play.
“They don’t like to lose, and there are a few who really hate to lose, and that makes all the difference. It means something to these guys to be the best team in league history.”
As proud as the Clippers are of their regular season success, they won’t consider their job complete until they capture the team’s first GLSCL championship.
They open the playoffs on Wednesday at home at 7:05 p.m. against the same Lima Locos in a short three-game North Division series. Game 2 will be Thursday in Lima, and Game 3, if necessary, would be back in Muskegon on Friday.
[2]The winner of the series will play the winner of the South Division playoff in the league championship series, which will also be a 2-of-3 affair.
The way the Clippers see it, they’ve been doing very little but winning all season, and there’s no point in stopping before finishing the job.
“The end goal is to win this whole thing,” Fleener said. “It’s going to be a hell of a battle, but the ultimate goal is to bring a championship to Pete and Walt (Gawkowski) and the city of Muskegon.”
While it would be dangerous for the Muskegon squad to be overconfident heading into the playoffs, after this weekend it would be hard to consider the Clippers anything but a heavy favorite.
They swept all four games in back-to-back doubleheaders, and added a big explanation point in Sunday’s fourth and final game.
The Clippers trailed 4-0 through five innings of the seven-inning game and had only managed one hit. A loss wouldn’t have bothered the fans too much, because the Clippers were were already division champs, and three out of four over the weekend would haven’t been bad.
[3]But that wasn’t good enough for the Clippers, who exploded for seven runs in the fifth inning and eight in the sixth to overcome their deficit and overwhelm the Locos.
There is a hunger to win on the Clippers’ roster that is highly unusual for a summer league collegiate baseball team, and is really is very special, according to Fleener.
“Talent only takes you so far,” Fleener said. “The difference has been their belief in each other and how hard they play day-in and day-out,” Fleener said. “Every day they clock in and do everything they can to make sure we’re in the win column at the end of the day.”
The Clippers won the first game on Sunday with relative ease.
Donovan Rinehart gave the home team a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning with an RBI sacrifice fly. They added two more runs in the bottom of the fifth on a two-run double by Aaron Piasecki, then capped off the scoring with a solo homer by Rinehart in the bottom of the sixth.
Starting pitcher Nicholas Bastian allowed only one hit and one walk with six strikeouts in five innings. Reliever Ryan Chamberlain tossed the last two innings to complete the 4-0 shutout.
Stony Smith led Muskegon with two hits while Aaron Piasecki, who leads the league in batting average, had one hit and two RBIs.
[4]Lima turned the tables for most of Game 2, scoring two runs in the second inning and two more in the fifth to take a 4-0 lead.
But the Clippers sprung back to life in the bottom of the fifth, scoring seven runs. Piasecki, Colin Cornwell and Sam Lysiak had RBI singles, then Brett Stanley added a two-run bases-loaded single, and a third run also came in on a throwing error.
Aidan Arbogast added one more RBI single and Muskegon suddenly led 7-4.
The Clippers tacked on eight more runs an inning later with an RBI bases-loaded walk by Brandon Scheurer, a two-run double from Stanley, an RBI single from Arbogast, a run that scored on a Lima error, an RBI walk to Rinehart and a two-run single by Lysiak.
Arbogast, Stanley, Lisiak and Cornwell all had two hits. Stanley knocked in four runs while Lisiak knocked in three.
Cornwell leads the league in RBIs.
Muskegon’s starting pitcher Gavin Sitarz was roughed up a bit in his five innings of work, but relievers Andrew Dukesherer and Jack Decker slammed the door on the Locos over the final two innings. 
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