T3, Lake Erie Warhawks to merge

Two of the biggest baseball organizations in northeast Ohio are coming together in a new partnership announced on April 9.

T3 performance announced in a release it will merge with the Lake Erie Warhawks organization, which was one of its biggest competitors in the youth baseball space.

“The Warhawks have truly excelled in a few areas where we were striving to get better. They’ve always been the best club in Ohio in terms of getting their older players into college,” said T3 Owner Mike D’Andrea. “We feel that, between their strengths (recruiting and coaches) and our strengths (facility, coaches, training, mental coaching, sports medicine) we will truly have the best club with the best resources for our athletes in the state of Ohio.”

The Lake Erie Warhawks are an AAU baseball organization run out of Lorain County. The Warhawks staff features several college coaches, including the head baseball coaches at Hiram University and Oberlin College.

More than 50 players from the Warhawks program earned scholarships to play baseball in 2020, including several from area high schools.

The idea behind the merger was originally floated in 2020 by Warhawks manager and Oberlin College head coach Adrian Abrahamowicz. The two sides had meetings for six months before agreeing to combine their efforts.

In addition to the merger, D’Andrea announced the newly merged organizations will open a new baseball space in 2022.

T3 currently operates out of its performance center in Avon, which offers training for members ages 6 and up. The facility provides training for a variety of sports, including football.

“We are also excited to announce that, in 2022, we will be opening up a new baseball-only space that will be dedicated 100 percent to our baseball club. We will have a players lounge, baseball offices, film rooms, and more,” D’Andrea said.

Interested players and parents are encouraged to bring any questions to an information night hosted at the T3 facility on April 11. One question that was answered in the release is, when will this officially take place?

The answer to that question is the 2021 fall ball season. Player costs will also not be affected according to the release and neither will the amount of players or teams in the organizations.

“The T3 Warhawks will essentially combine the number of teams, allowing us to accept just as many players as we normally would for each program,” D’Andrea said.