![\"Baseball](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/TOP-L-RHLNWvsTCSFD3BASEsemifinal-0611-14.jpg\")
Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest’s Jacob Kouba delivers a pitch against Traverse City St. Francis during a Division 3 state semifinal game played at MSU’s McLane Stadium on June 11, 2026. (GEORGE SPITERI \u2014 For MediaNews Group)<\/p>\nEAST LANSING \u2013 The Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest Crusaders baseball team saw their season finally come to an end in the state semifinals with a 13-3 loss to the top-ranked Traverse City St. Francis Gladiators.<\/p>\n
After Traverse City St. Francis took the lead with three runs in the bottom of the first inning, the Crusaders got on the board in the top of the second when Ethan Wilks singled in a run to make it 3-1.<\/p>\n
But that was as close as Lutheran Northwest would get.\u00a0The Crusaders just struggled in the field and Traverse City St. Francis took full advantage to score early and score often.<\/p>\n
The Gladiators plated four runs in the bottom of the second inning with the help of three errors and a wild pitch by Lutheran Northwest. That made it 7-1 and largely put the game out of reach early. Overall, Lutheran North committed eight errors, hit three batters, and uncorked a wild pitch. All of that led to nine unearned runs and was just too many mistakes to overcome against the number one ranked team in Division 3.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just told the guys don\u2019t let this define you. We know what the difference was today \u2013 we just didn\u2019t make plays. It\u2019s disappointing, but I\u2019m still super proud of these guys,\u201d head coach Russ Kouba said.<\/p>\n
Lutheran Northwest eventually settled down and kept fighting, getting a pair of runs on a fifth inning double by Brennan Goebel that cut the deficit to 11-3.<\/p>\n
Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest’s Jacob Kouba delivers a pitch against Traverse City St. Francis during a Division 3 state semifinal game played at MSU’s McLane Stadium on June 11, 2026. (GEORGE SPITERI \u2014 For MediaNews Group)<\/p>\n
But overall, it was one very bad day for the Crusaders in what was otherwise one very good year for the program. Lutheran Northwest finishes the year 28-7 under a second-year head coach in Kouba and made it to the semifinals for the first time since the Crusaders won the Division 4 state championship in 2004. This was the first time Lutheran Northwest had made it to the state semifinals as Division 3 program.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese guys battle. Every one of them stepped up along the way. It was a special run until this point,\u201d Kouba said. \u201cHopefully, we take this as an experience for our juniors. We\u2019ve got a lot of juniors coming back and we can be better and ready for it and more prepared next year\u201d<\/p>\n
The Crusaders graduate five seniors, three of whom started on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started coaching at Northwest when they were freshmen. So when they came in is when I started as a JV coach. It\u2019s a special group to me. It always will be,\u201d Kouba said. \u201cBut having only three of the five. We had the injury, but three of the five playing. Those were our leaders out there. We have three who are going to be playing at the next lever next year, which is awesome. Having a school our size have three playing in college baseball that says something about their work ethic and what we\u2019re trying to build as a program.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lutheran Northwest will return 13 players from this season\u2019s roster, including seven who started the semifinal on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n