Hungry Tigers finding strength in numbers

HURON — Interest in baseball at Huron High School is on an upswing, even after the spring sports season was canceled. Twenty-five Tigers are playing on the program's summer team, and head coach Dan Lindsley said he's seen a lot of enthusiasm from his squad. "We've got a lot of kids buying in to baseball in Huron right now, so that's a really positive thing," he said. "We've got kids who want to be here. We went through a couple years where we didn't have a big number of kids who wanted to play baseball and now we do. "When we opened it up June 1, everyone was here. We had a couple intrasquad scrimmages and everyone was locked in. We're trying to keep that going but add some fun and enjoy it because we don't know what the future holds." If high school baseball is played in the 2020-21 school year, Huron will have a deep senior class and plenty of arms to send to the mound. Staff ace Chris Hand will be a senior. He'll be in center field when he's not on the mound. Huron's other top seniors will be shortstop Cole Parker and versatile infielder Zach Murray. "All three of them are baseball guys and bring leadership and quality talent to the table," Lindsley said. They won't be the only seniors who will be making an impact. Lindsley listed Kaydn Yates, Justin Obermeyer, Aiden Kastor, Ayden Swinehart and Tyler Adams as other rising seniors who will contribute. Yates will assume starting catching duties after Reid Witter graduated. Kastor will be part of a deep pitching staff. Obermeyer (outfield), Adams (infield) and Swinehart (catcher) round out a strong class. Rising juniors Joey Schade (pitcher, first base) and Cody Mamere (pitcher, infield) will add more upperclass talent to the team. Kaden Staley and Bryan Zimmerman are two others who will get looks on the mound. "The fact that we get the opportunity to play a little bit this summer is huge for us because we've got a ton of arms that haven't pitched at the varsity level," Lindsley said. "To see a number of kids pitch for an inning or two against varsity-level hitters has been a big thing for us." Huron is playing a 15-game summer schedule after the OHSAA opted to allow unlimited coaching days after the coronavirus led to the cancellation of the spring season. The Tigers finish up today at Western Reserve and Saturday with a home doubleheader against Sandusky (9 a.m.) and the Ohio Trojans (1 p.m.). Lindsley wants his players to have fun and improve at the same time. He delivered that message a couple weeks ago when the Tigers scrimmaged at Margaretta. "We had kind of a come-to-Jesus moment with them," he said. "'Hey, if we're going to be out here we're going to play like we want to play next year.' Nobody balked at that. We put it on the table: If you're going to play this summer don't come here thinking it's a screw-around session because everything that's gone on in the world. "Everybody's pretty much showed up so we haven't had to play guys out of position, which can happen in the summertime. They're all kind of buying in to it." The Tigers would have had only three seniors on this year's roster — Witter, Christian Scroggins and Caden Cantrill. Scroggins and Cantrill are playing with the team this summer. "They've taken this as their senior season and they've been playing good baseball, and more importantly being good leaders for the younger kids," Lindsley said. "They knew we were trending in the right direction coming into this spring."