Sterling names Mike Mendenhall head baseball coach

Mendenhall spent the past two years as Tigers’ assistant coach

The Sterling Tigers officially have a new man in charge of their baseball team.

Well, sor t of.

Sterling High School announced on Thursday that they’ve named Mike Mendenhall as the new head coach of the Tiger baseball team. Mendenhall has been an assistant coach for Sterling the past two years, and an assistant coach for the softball program this past season. While he’s technically new to the position, he’s not new to the team.

“It’s exciting,” he said of the opportunity to take over the program. “I took over the summer program this past year… I’m really excited for this opportunity. I have a good relationship with the players and parents. I think we’ll have a pretty good squad this year.”

Mendenhall was in Liberal, Kansas prior to taking the assistant coaching position with Sterling two years ago. He was already familiar with Sterling, having played baseball at Northeastern

Junior College with former Sterling head coach and Athletic Director Jef f Squier. It was Squier who brought Mendenhall to SHS in the first place.

Now, he’s the man in charge. Due to COVID-19, the 2020 spring sports season was canceled, preventing Sterling from taking the field. As such, last year’s senior class of Drew Book, Daniel Thiessen, Jayce Simmons, and Chris Scherbarth. Scherbarth, Thiessen, and Book are all off playing college baseball now, and had there been a season, the Tigers very well could’ve been state champions last year.

All of that being said, Sterling still boasts some considerable talent. Mendenhall believes that even with those losses, Sterling will be just fine.

“My first year we had a lot of good freshman who are juniors now,” he said. “Dylan Diorio will be one of our top guys. Kaeden Sheets is a senior and he’s started since he was a freshman at shortstop. Noah Soper’s really been coming along pitching wise. Andrew Meick is going to be a really big bat in the lineup. Trevor Rausch is another senior with a lot of experience. He can play anywhere. I’m excited to see what the Wilson brothers (Easton and Kobe) do this year as well. Brock Burkholder is a senior that did really well this summer and figured out his swing. I’m really excited to see how these guys step up.”

It will be a new kind of year with all of the changes to the schedule, playof f selection process, and general rules. One thing’s for sure, though, Mendenhall is feeling confident that when the season does come around in late April, the Sterling Tigers will be ready to go.

“If Logan Bohler comes out this year he’ll be one of our top arms,” he said. “Casteus Combs will compete too if he comes out…we’ve got a bunch of young guys too. I want to thank Mr. (Rick) Jensen and the school for giving me this oppor tunity and I’m excited to get to work.”