Growing up, Lucas Farner had a front row seat to the success of Brownstown Woodhaven baseball over the last decade.
The son of coach Corey Farner, he watched Woodhaven begin a district championship streak in 2018, which included two trips to the Division 1 state championship game in 2018 and 2023.
Both of those state championship runs ended with losses in the title game, but now the junior has a direct hand in trying to win the school’s first baseball championship.
He helped the Warriors (34-5) take one more step toward that goal in a 6-1 win over Warren De La Salle in a Division 1 quarterfinal at Woodhaven High School on Saturday, June 6. Farner shut down De La Salle over 6⅔ innings before hitting his 105-pitch limit and tallied two hits as the Warriors punched their ticket to the state semifinal at McLane Stadium in East Lansing.
“He’s never won one and I wanted to be part of his first,” Farner said. “This is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, we can get it done next Friday.”
Woodhaven had to top two Catholic League teams on Saturday. In the regional final, they narrowly beat Birmingham Brother Rice, 4-3, thanks to a fifth-inning rally and steady pitching from sophomore Tristan Spencer and one inning from Farner.
Brother Rice jumped out to a 2-0 lead and held onto that advantage until the fifth. Woodhaven struggled at the plate against Brother Rice lefty Cole Duhaime, a Virginia commit, and his two-seam fastball and offspeed combination.
The bottom of Woodhaven’s lineup finally cracked the code late. It started with a Brayden Dudek single up the middle, followed by a Preston Scheffler single to right. Aaron Scott plated Dudek with another single to right. Farner laid down a sacrifice bunt, scoring Scheffler without an out recorded because of a tardy throw home. Catcher Cameron Thorning delivered the game-winning hit with a two-RBI double in the gap.
“The top of the lineup did what it needed to against De La Salle and the bottom of the lineup did their job against Brother Rice,” Spencer said.
Spencer continued to dance around Brother Rice’s traffic on the basepaths with his offspeed pitches before Farner took oer in the seventh. He gave up one run, but stranded the tying and go-ahead runs to win the regional.
“He didn’t have his best stuff today, but he battled,” Woodhaven coach Corey Farner said. “That’s what a bulldog does and that’s what we want on the mound. He exemplifies that for us and he’s been like that all year.”
With the win over Brother Rice, Woodhaven reached the quarterfinals for the second straight season. The Warriors went into the school gym – while De La Salle beat Livonia Stevenson, 5-0 – to rest and recharge out of the unrelenting sun and heat.
The group was determined to avenge last year’s loss to Grosse Pointe South. They wanted the season to last one more week.
Woodhaven blitzed De La Salle with five straight runners reaching base in the top of the first inning and scoring four runs before an out was recorded. Spencer punctuated the inning by crushing a two-run double to the right field fence.
From there, the Warriors cruised with Farner on the mound, scoring two more runs on a Thorning fourth-inning single and an error that allowed him to score. Thorning, a Wright State commit, led Woodhaven with three hits and two RBIs. The Warriors finished with 12 hits.
“The start was really the difference,” Corey Farner said. “You come out and wonder if sitting out of a game will make you come out flat and it didn’t. It was the exact opposite of that.”
Saturday’s wins were a culmination of a year’s worth of work and motivation coming off last year’s quarterfinals loss. The Warriors spent the last six months showing up to school at 5 a.m to lift weights and finding any time they could to find the secret to a deeper playoff run.
The hope is that same work will be a springboard for two more wins – and one more trophy – next weekend in East Lansing.
“The goal six months ago was to go to McLane Stadium, and we did it,” Farner said.
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Jared Ramsey covers high school sports for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at jramsey@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Lucas Farner, Tristan Spencer lift Woodhaven baseball back to state semifinals
Reporting by Jared Ramsey, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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By Jared Ramsey, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
