The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Avon optimistic about new challenges
District champion Eagles have new coach, graduated 10 seniors
The year 2017 was an exciting one for Avon baseball.
The Eagles earned a Southwestern Conference co-championship with Amherst, thanks to a 21-win season and finally shook the “Pipe Yard Curse” — a term coined by former coach Frank DeSmit after making it to at least a district semifinal at Lorain’s Pipe Yard Stadium in six of his 10 years as head coach only to lose every single game. Until last season. In its sixth try, Avon emerged victorious to claim the school’s first district championship in baseball before ultimately losing, 7-6, in a wild, 14-inning affair with Medina.
But so much has changed over the course of the offseason.
The Eagles have a new coach in Craig Kirschner, and theygraduated 10 seniors from last year’s district title team. Yet the pressure is still on to pick up right where the others left off.
Unfortunately, the season didn’t quite start how everyone had hoped.
Avon lost its first two games of the season by a 19-2 margin and, in its third game, went down, 6-0, to Mayfield after the first inning before something had to give.
“Those first two losses, the
kids kind of opened their eyes like, ‘Whoa, wait a second. We aren’t the team we were last year,’ ” Kirschner said. “Our past success has been wonderful, but this is a different team, a different year . ... Last year was last year, this year is this year.”
Clearly sick of losing, the Eagles chipped away and eventually beat Mayfield, 7-6, holding the Wildcats scoreless after that disastrous first inning. Two days later, the Eagles scored 16 runs in five innings to open SWC play with a win over North Olmsted.
The team didn’t lower the program standard after losing all it lost, either.
If anything, the Eagles are out to prove they’re just as strong a team as any other Avon baseball team of the past and stringing together back-to-back wins has finally eased some of the tension in the dugout after a shaky start.
“Our confidence was down in the dirt after our first two games, but we just knew we had it in us,” junior Logan Allomong said. “We’ll remain confident and hopefully keep on a winning streak.”
Allomong is one of 12 juniors filling holes left by graduation with much of the team having little to no varsity experience.
That’s not exactly ideal when playing in a conference notorious for having its teams beat up on each other day in and day out. But the goals remain the same no matter the roster: conference championship, district championship and, who knows, maybe more.
“These guys have high expectations for themselves and I absolutely love that,” Kirschner said. “They set goals of their own and, us as coaches, we’re here to support them in whatever goals they want because it’s their team.
“But those expectations, yeah, losing 10 seniors, everybody doesn’t expect us to come back. We’re a very inexperienced team, but what I love about this team is they love to play the game. They really, really do. Yes, we’re young. We’re going to have growing pains, I know that. so we’re trying to do our best to stay positive with them throughout whatever comes our way this season.
“We have a goal, we want to get to that goal and we’re going to do whatever we have to do to get to that goal.”