Terra State builds winning baseball program

SANDUSKY — Terra State Community College's baseball program is getting hot at the right time. The Titans have won 15 of their last 18 games heading into the three-day NJCAA Region 12 tournament, which begins Wednesday at Sports Force Parks. Terra State is 29-20 this season. The Titans open district play Wednesday against Lorain County Community College. The Titans have a roster filled with almost all Ohio athletes with a good dose of local talent sprinkled in. Terra's top player is Tiffin Calvert graduate Mason Johnson, who leads the nation with 15 home runs and 74 runs batted in. The second-year player has received interest from some NCAA Division I programs. Among the area players on the NJCAA Division III roster are Bellevue's Cody Lindsey and Jax LaPata and St. Paul's Thomas Zuccaro. "We would like 35 percent of the kids to be from the area, because it's good for the area to have something like this," Titans head coach Gregg Hedden said. "Most of the kids are between Mansfield and Vermilion over to Findlay and Lima. "The No. 1 thing we look for is good students. We want good culture, so with good students you get good culture. We have really good kids. We preach family, they take care of each other and handle things really well." Zuccaro is the Titans' No. 1 catcher and is batting .393 with two homers and 29 RBI. "Thomas didn't play last year," Hedden said. "He worked and came back and played all summer in the Back Bay (league at Sports Force). He's having a really good year as our No. 1 catcher." Lindsey, a freshman pitcher, is 4-0 and has thrown 33 innings this year. LaPata, whose high school career was slowed by knee injuries, is batting .291 and plays shortstop. "Jax, coming off those two knee surgeries, he didn't play at all last fall and didn't really start on the field this spring but eventually worked his way in there," Hedden said. "He's such a strong competitor and keeps getting better." Lindsey, who Hedden said "keeps improving with every outing," had interest from a couple Division III schools before choosing Terra. "I came to one of their games last year and I thought the culture was the right fit for me," Lindsey said. "I'm glad I'm here. The guys here just want to play baseball and we're all pretty close. "I'm definitely improving. I'm getting stronger, throwing harder. Jake Wilson, our pitching coach (and associate head coach), has done a phenomenal job with everybody." Other area players on the roster include Mason Harvey and Braden Sartor (Sandusky), Dawson Kinsey (Clyde) and Nick Lukac (Norwalk). They're part of a junior college roster that has to be rebuilt each year. "We only have three starters returning from last year," Hedden said. "That's the junior college world. Every year you're gonna be different. "They all come in as good players. You need to refine them. They go six days a week from the first Tuesday of September until now." The Titans played their first game this year February 28, but there is plenty of preparation behind the scenes. "It's a grind; it's work," Hedden said. "When you're going to class three hours a day and you're studying for a couple hours, going to study tables, lifting and going to practice, there's not much time for anything else." Hedden looked around the field during a practice last week at Sports Force and estimated that more than 20 of his players will be All-Academic athletes at the NJCAA level. He also said about 30 percent of his roster plan to go into the trades, which have proven to be a smart choice for many high school graduates. Sartor, who was a standout football and baseball player at Sandusky, is part of that group. He is working toward an associate degree in HVAC. "When I was in high school I did the welding program and I liked it," Sartor said. "My senior year I got the opportunity to intern at Hohler and Gundlach. I thought maybe I'd go to school and get a degree. I feel like I owed it to myself to get some sort of college education. I picked it up and fell in love with HVAC." Sartor is a catcher for the Titans, although he showed some of his football background during a collision at home plate during an intrasquad scrimmage. The contact did not faze Sartor. "I miss football so much," he said. Terra's road from a first-year program in 2022 to winning a region title last year has taken an upward trajectory. The Titans hope to build on that success this week. "We went from seven (wins) to 14 to 20 to who knows this year. It gets better every year," Hedden said. "The kids who started this, we took a bunch of high school kids and put them together. By Year 2, 11 kids went and played four-year baseball off that roster. It's just gotten better each year."