TONTOGANY — Senior Joseph Dzierwa says leaving Otsego High School for Michigan State University will be heartbreaking.

“You know, it has flown by really quick, but I have had a lot of memories here,” Dzierwa said.

Dzierwa will be heading to MSU to play baseball if professional scouts do not sign him first. They have been circling the wagons at multiple games this year, carrying their notebook and radar gun.

Dzierwa, a 6-foot-7, 175-pound southpaw, is hitting 90-miles-per-hour with his fastball and throws a curveball and various off-speed changeups.

He may throw an occasional slider but says more pitches will be added as his career develops. For now, he needs to “worry about throwing strikes,” and the rest will take care of itself.

At the time of this interview, much of his senior year was still being played and with no 2019-20 season because of a pandemic, he is 11-3 with 148 strikeouts and 20 walks while allowing 46 hits and 20 earned runs in 90.1 innings.

Dzierwa, who has a career 1.55 ERA, has started 14 games, with 13 complete games and five shutouts.

A standout quarterback, he did not play basketball last winter, working on his pitching at an indoor Cleveland area facility over the winter and attending showcases in Chicago and around the country.

He also continues personalized workouts at home with various pitching coaches. He missed playing basketball with his classmates but believes he made the right decision.

“With having the winter off, I think looking back at it, it was a good decision because you can see my progress,” Dzierwa said.

“I know that when I concentrated on one sport, I can see how much I gained from it, so I think taking a year off was very helpful to me because I learned a lot and I think it has an impact with how I’ll be this year.”

Dzierwa is dangerous at the plate, too. This year he is batting .410 (16-for-39) with 14 runs, 12 RBIs, one double, four triples and one home run.

For his career, he is hitting .322 (38-for-118) with 32 runs, 35 RBIs, seven doubles, five triples and one homer. Those numbers, the MSU campus, and other factors led MSU coach Jake Boss Jr. to hook up with Dzierwa.

“The people there were great. The baseball coaches were phenomenal, and they are good people,” Dzierwa said. “Teammates are good, and I like their school, too. It is a beautiful campus. I think it fits me well.

“It means a lot. Coaches, they are really good — they supported me through football season, the offseason since I did not play basketball and they are supporting me through baseball, too, to they have been a huge help for me.”

First, Dzierwa says he has unfinished business with the Otsego baseball team.

“To get a shot at the league and to win districts because we’ve been there a couple years. We just can’t get past that,” Dzierwa said.

Joseph’s father, Matt Dzierwa, played football for Northwestern University from 1988-92 and was Joseph’s coach at Otsego, retiring after last season. So, competing in the Big Ten is nothing new to the Dzierwa family.

Matt has been the head football coach for the past nine seasons.

“My dad has been really supportive through everything and so has my family,” Joseph said.

“But he has kind of gone through the same thing I have with sports and academics, so I can relate to him a lot because he played football at Northwestern.”

Joseph Dzierwa was an all-state quarterback and a two-time Northern Buckeye Conference Player of the Year.

Last year, he completed 111 of 208 passes for 1,836 yards and 24 touchdowns with just two interceptions.

For his career, he completed 396 of 695 passes (57%) for 5,751 yards with 64 TDs and 16 interceptions and led Otsego to consecutive undefeated regular seasons, the playoffs, and the 2020 Division V state semifinals.

“Joseph’s play and ability the last three years enabled us to do some pretty good things on offense,” Coach Dzierwa said.

The high school senior said he might not be the baseball player he is today if it were not for football. The lessons learned are similar, he says.

“It’s meant a lot. I’ve learned so much through football,” Dzierwa said. “I think it translates a lot to baseball, for me, even mentally and physically.

“The memories I made with my brothers in my senior class. Our senior class is unbelievable, I think. when I was ball boy 10 years ago, I would never think that we would be going to the final four and winning back-to-back league championships.

“Football is a big team sport, so all my teammates — I still remember all of them — I still keep in touch with all of them, and we are all still friends, which is pretty cool,” he continued.

There is another side to Dzierwa that not everyone sees — his 3.8 GPA and the fact he has already started taking college classes, mostly business writing currently, through the University of Toledo, which he says will be a huge help down the road.

“I like just knowing not having to pay for the classes and knowing that I will get my classes done. It is going to be easier for me during baseball, when I’m playing, so I can take less classes,” he said.

Dzierwa wants to major in business at MSU, preferably finance. Business and mathematics are his favorite classes, and he is part of numerous clubs, including the credit union.

“Every Tuesday, we have people set up for the high school, elementary and junior high. We go talk to people about how to save money properly,” he said.