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Division 3 Team Of The Week: Week 1 - Edison

DETROIT - As disappointing as it was to miss out on a 2020 season with senior standouts Werner Blakely and David Thurman, head coach Mark Brown could not ask for more with the results so far in the 2021 campaign.

“What has stood out is how together these guys are, how connected they are,” explained Brown, whose team is off to a 10-0 start to the year including three wins this past week to earn the honor of Prep Baseball Report Division 3 Team of the Week. “We’re disappointed about last year, we thought the team could win state, but these guys this year are hungry. In 10 games we’ve scored 120 runs and could have scored more.”

A lineup with Greg Pace leading off followed by Omar Boyd, Brandon Ford and Caleb Sanders has been more than formidable. Ford,  the 17th-rated senior shortstop in Michigan and called by Brown “one of the most underrated kids in the state,” is the catcher for Edison. Batting .500 with 14 RBIs, Ford has only permitted one stolen base through 10 games.

Boyd, the fourth-ranked senior second baseman in Michigan, brings speed and versatility to the lineup while Sanders, a Dayton commit, is the fourth-ranked 2022 outfielder in the state and leads the team in RBIs with 16 while pounding out six extra base hits with a .385 average. A right fielder for Edison, Sanders has thrown out two players at the plate and is also used as a closer on the mound.

Pace, a Michigan commit and the third-rated junior outfielder, plays center field and tops the team in home runs with four, runs with 14, walks with 11 and stolen bases with 12. Pace is also the top pitcher on a staff that includes Boyd (3-0 with a 1.00 ERA), senior Josh Smith (2-0) and freshman Marwynn Matthews, a surprise so far in the eyes of Brown.

“We didn’t know he’d be in the rotation,” Brown said of the fifth-rated 2024 shortstop in Michigan who has a 2-0 record with 15 strikeouts in nine innings of work.

Another pleasant surprise has been junior Eddie Gregory, the eighth-ranked 2022 shortstop in the state who is batting .500 with 14 runs scored hitting at the bottom of the lineup.

“All these guys one through nine can run,” noted Brown. “The biggest key for us is to stay focused, stay humble, not get caught up in press clippings, play hard and practice hard every day. We don’t want to play our best baseball in April, we want to keep getting better and, hopefully, be playing our best baseball when districts start.”

The fifth-year head coach at Edison, who started coaching back in 1994, is excited to have his team back on the field after missing the senior season of Blakely, now in the Angels’ organization, and Thurman, currently at Wayne State.

“Last year we felt we had a great chance to make a run,” noted Brown, who has led Edison to three consecutive district championships. “We lost two important guys from that team, but the guys we have back are a year older. Physically we outman folks. That’s a testament to how hard these guys worked in the offseason.”

Edison, which plays all games on the road, has a matchup slated against Divine Child tonight followed by a doubleheader scheduled for Saturday against Lincoln Park.

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