He missed wrestling season, but Westosha Central's Brett Marth is making the most of his opportunities by standing out his senior season on the baseball diamond.
Marth was in the WC lineup for the team's first game April 4. Less than six months before he was told he had non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Right now, he's batting .340 for his team.
“I guess it could be better in several ways,” Marth said. “The last couple games for us have been good.”
On the mound, he's 3-2 with a 3.4 ERA. Marth was an all-state wrestler last year, but is just happy to be playing baseball.
His cancer was diagnosed in early fall.
“I was getting tired a lot,” Marth said.
Then he got the news. It was devastating news for the 17-year-old athlete. The National Cancer Institute has reported that there were 66,120 new cases in 2008 of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Less than a third of those resulted in deaths.
Marth started chemotherapy around Thanksgiving and soon after that started losing his hair.
He was forced to miss wrestling season. As a junior, he had qualified for the state finals. He took chemo every three weeks and has his blood taken every week. He was looking forward to a banner senior season on the wrestling mat.
“It was one of the hardest things I've done,” he said. “They tell you it was going to be hard. I dreaded going back every three weeks.”
In February, Marth learned that he was healthy again.
“I feel fine, better than I did before this happened,” Marth said. “They want to keep checking to make sure it doesn't come back."
A second baseman for Westosha Central, Marth will attend college at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and either wrestle or play baseball. On the mound, he is 2-1 with 19 strikeouts in 19 innings.
Marth, a senior, plays second base and pitches and is also the leadoff batter with a .379 batting average. He has 17 hits, including a home run.
His first-year coach Randy Appleby, has been impressed with what he's seen. Appleby had been the JV coach for seven years. He coached Marth on the JV level.
“He was a pretty decent ballplayer last year too,” Appleby said. “His batting average may be a little higher now than it was toward the end of last season. The thing about Brett is that he's a competitor. He just keeps working. He made honorable mention all-conference last season.”
Marth is among the team's leading hitters.
“What he had knocked him out of the wrestling season,” Appleby said. “He made it through it. He was still undergoing chemotherapy and was taking batting practice off the tee by himself. He got done with it about two weeks before the season started.
“He's an athlete so he was in pretty good shape before. It knocked him down fatigue-wise. He was tired all the time.”
Appleby said Marth's work ethic has made him a top-notch player.
“He's a hard worker. He's a relentless competitor. He wants to succeed and win. That proved him well against the cancer he had,” Appleby said.
“I feel 100 percent, as good as I've always felt,” Marth said.
He hasn't decided yet if he'll wrestle or play baseball at Whitewater.
“They want me to wrestle,” he said. “The baseball coaches haven't talked to me yet. It's tough to do both sports. Sports in college is year round.”
Regardless of his future, Marth said his illness and return to high school sports has taught him plenty about life.
“I took a lot of things for granted,” he said.
