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Team Of The Week: 2nd Edition - Rochester Adams

ROCHESTER - “I thought we had a chance to be pretty good.”

That was the outlook Rochester Adams head coach Andrew Lamkin had entering the 2025 season.

Through one week of play that estimation is spot on, if not even selling his team a little short.

Three wins over Lake Orion has Lamkin feeling good about his squad, which is the Prep Baseball Team of the Week for the state of Michigan.

“We lost two players from last year, one being Bino Watters (the 35th-rated 2024 outfielder in the nation who is now playing at Notre Dame), but the core group and all our pitching came back,” the Rochester Adams mentor noted. “Our pitching has been good so far and we added some good talent.”

Lamkin pointed to the younger brother of Bino with “setting the tone for the series” with Ryland (Rino) Watters, the sixth-rated junior left-handed pitcher in Michigan, throwing four innings of solid relief in game one and the Highlanders broke away from a 2-2 deadlock for a 6-3 victory.

Drew Szymanski, the 31st-ranked 2026 RHP in the state, tossed five innings of scoreless ball in the second game before Jesse Geottes came on to complete the 8-0 shutout win with two strong innings. Drew Stitzel, the 37th-rated senior right-handed pitcher in Michigan, was the winning pitcher in game three with Daniel Seymour, the 12th-ranked 2025 shortstop in the state, coming on to close out a 10-6 triumph over the No. 10 Division I team in the state in the preseason poll.

Matt Toeppner, the fifth-rated junior outfielder in Michigan, was outstanding in the leadoff spot in the batting order, getting on base nine times, stealing seven bases and scoring seven runs. Luke Borowski, the number 12 rated 2026 outfielder in the state, was credited with producing timely hits according to Lamkin, pounding out five hits in three games with four RBIs.

“We have six hitters coming off the series hitting over .400,” related Lamkin, five of them juniors in Toeppner, Borowski, Andrew Wozniak, Johnny Safadi and Henry Hittle, along with freshman Koltyn (Flip) Watters, the younger sibling of Rino.

But it was pitching that the Rochester Adams head coach pointed to as key.

“Probably the most important thing was our team ERA is 1.667 and our strikeout-to-walk ratio is 2-to-1,” Lamkin explained. “Our pitching and defense was really good.”

With four college commits, Stitzel to Northwood, Jack Durand (22nd-rated senior LHP) to Lansing CC, Henry Donohoe (fourth-rated senior third baseman) to Kalamazoo and catcher/infielder Jackson Schaffner to Albion, Lamkin felt the team performed as he expected.

“Nothing surprised me,” Lamkin said. “I know we can pitch and play defense and we have solid catching (McCallister Doelle, the 10th-rated junior catcher, and Schaffner). We’re going to hit much better this year than we did last year when we played almost everyone in the top 10 and won 19 games, winning a share of the OAA Red league title for a third straight season and just coming up short in the district finals against a very talented Rochester club.”

Lamkin, who credited his staff of third base coach Tim Williams (overall defensive coach, infield specifically), first base coach Dave Lovalvo (outfield and bunting) and Gehrig Williams (catching/pitching coach) with “doing a tremendous job”, looks at a couple things as keys to keeping the success going, with games scheduled this week versus Clarkston and Brother Rice.

“We need to keep throwing strikes and offensively do what we do,” Lamkin said. “We need to bunt, run bases well, and keep lowering our number of strikeouts.”

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