Edison brings family fun to final four

MILAN — All the clichés about a team being like a family or a band of brothers — those are simply the way it is on the Edison baseball team. There are four pairs of brothers on the Chargers' varsity roster. Keegan and Cameron Smith are senior twins. There's another Smith pairing, made up of Noah and Carson. Thomas Simon and his younger brother Blake are a pair of southpaws. And Clint and Cy Finnen are brothers, too. The family connections don't stop there. Head coach Sean Hoover's son, Max, is on the team. So is assistant coach Jeff Dymond's son, Dominic. "It's definitely weird," senior Hayden Fox said. "I'm always mixing up names and everything, especially in the dugout. It's just nice that we have a family, legitimately and as a team." When Edison (23-8) makes its trip to Akron for a Thursday state semifinal matchup with Cincinnati Roger Bacon (19-7), it'll be a family road trip. The Chargers feel that only makes them better. "It just gives us better chemistry," senior Xander Danner said. "Everyone's been around each other for years. Even them together, just all the brothers bickering back and forth makes everybody happier." On an Edison team with 10 seniors, there are plenty of long-established relationships. But even if it's obvious, it's also true that these siblings have been together for their whole baseball lives. The Smith twins, Keegan and Cameron, are the most literal epitome of that fact. They've been able to play on the same team every baseball season of their life. Growing up, Cameron was a catcher and Keegan was a pitcher. That meant plenty of backyard bullpen sessions. "It's like a built-in best friend," Keegan Smith said, "and to share these four years and to end senior year like this making a run to the final four is awesome." The Simon brothers, senior Thomas and sophomore Blake, are both left-handed pitchers, which has allowed them to lean on each other even in the middle of games. "He helps me out a lot when I struggle with some of my pitches," Thomas Simon said. "He helps me with my mechanics." Noah Smith is another senior, and his younger brother Carson is a sophomore. Noah has batted .266 this season with a .435 on-base percentage, equaling his strikeout total with 16 walks. Despite all the Smiths, Sean Hoover insisted he doesn't get them confused. The fourth pair of brothers, junior Clint Finnen and freshman Cy, is the only pairing that will both be back for the Chargers next season. Clint, a sweet-swinging lefty, is batting .316 this season. "It's been a good dynamic, and that's kind of what you need to have seasons like this," Sean Hoover said. "You need that great dynamic of being able to support each other throughout the season." Then there are the pair of juniors, Max Hoover and Dominic Dymond, coached by their fathers. Jeff Dymond was slated to be on the JV staff during the 2020 season lost to COVID-19 and has been on the varsity staff the past two seasons. Those father-son relationships aren't too visible when at the field, other players said. "They seem to keep the family matter out of baseball practice," Thomas Simon said. "For the most part it seems like it's business to them, which is good, because see where it's gotten us." Brothers are often the first to get on each other's case, and that can be the case on the Edison baseball team, too. "It's a different dynamic of how we interact with the team versus our brothers," Keegan Smith said. "It's kind of funny. You get a little angrier with your brother." Thomas and Blake Simon may show their love in the most aggressive way toward each other. "I probably get on Blake more than others do, but everybody else is there to settle me down," Thomas Simon said. "It's awesome. It just adds to that family feeling on the team." At the end of the day, these siblings and father-son pairings will spend time with each other long after their baseball careers are done. They're in each other's lives by more than choice. But their futures together will now include quite the memories. "We already talk about it all the time, but we're gonna remember this for the rest of our lives," Thomas Simon said. "... It's just a great feeling. We're gonna talk about this when we're 40 to our kids."