Standing L-R:
Bill Holbeck, Ken Lowe,
Greg Perez, Bill Dean, Rich
Tessner, Tom Crystal, Mike
Contos and Coach Jim
Vukovich.
Kneeling L-R: Dan Sutkowi,
Richard Penny, Keith
Richardson, Kevin West,
Wesley Penny, Chuck
Wallace and Bat Boy, Loren
July. (Not pictured
Joe La Duke).
Bentley High had all kinds of motivation to win a state baseball championship in 1975.
For one thing, the 1973 team had set the bar and showed it could be done by winning the first state title in school history. Secondly, the 1974 Bulldogs had turned in a strong (21-4) season and looked like a good bet to defend the title — until they got knocked out in
a 1-0 pre-district loss to Ainsworth. Many of those players were juniors in ’74 and still around in 1975 with something to prove.
But the biggest factor in Bentley’s run to the 1975 Class B state baseball crown might have been an embarrassing defeat suffered midway
through the season. On May 16, the Bulldogs committed an unheard-of seven errors in a 7-5 loss to Grand Blanc in the first round of the Greater
Flint Invitational.
The debacle lit a fire under the Bulldogs and they never lost again, reeling off 13 consecutive wins, capped by a 3-2 victory over Wyoming
Godwin Heights in the state final June 14 at Flint’s Lincoln Park. Bentley finished 24-5, setting a school record for wins, and became the first Class
B school to win two titles in the five-year history of the state tournament.
Now, that team will join the ’73 squad in the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame.
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