No break for General baseball team with trip to Tennessee
Spring break presents a problem for many coaches and athletic teams, with students leaving on weekend or extended vacations. That can leave many teams short-handed. Not so for Wooster High baseball coach Brian Ehrlinspiel. When spring break arrived, he made sure his club was going to remain intact by taking it on a trip.While it was an escape from Wooster, it wasn't a vacation, as the Generals played four games last week. The Generals went 1-3 over the span, but that was one of the few disappointments on their trip to Clarksville, a city of 100,000 on the western border of Tennessee and Kentucky.
"We came back in one piece," laughed Ehrlinspiel, which was the truly important aspect of the trip. "The competition was top-notch and we saw some real good baseball. In Northeast Ohio you think of football; in Tennessee they think baseball. Their baseball facilities are top-notch and it's their football fields that are forgotten."
The trip came about when several parents approached Ehrlinspiel last fall about making such a trip.
"A lot of our guys play travel baseball over the summer and they wanted our seniors to look forward to a trip like this," said Ehrlinspiel. "There were some ABC's that had to taken care of, such as arranging transportation and raising the funds, but they did it. Our parents do a wonderful job supporting the program. They worked extra concession booths to raise money and they worked our fundraiser, and we had the support of (athletic director) Keri Hamsher through the whole process."
That process included finding a tournament, and the William Workman Classic was found in Clarksville.
"It's an annual invitational," said Ehrlinspiel. "Our parents found it, we scouted it on-line and we checked to see if it was feasible and would work out."
There are five high schools in Clarksville, most of them slightly larger than Wooster. The big difference in Ehrlinspiel's eyes was the year-round aspect of the programs. There was an indoor facility where schools play, but "they also have a middle school feeder program and they play 35 games to our 28," he noted.
"Clarksville will travel and play the top team in Florida," he said. "The No. 1 team in the nation is in Knoxville (Tenn.) and the last three teams we played will all play that No. 1 team this year. It's different."
The Generals started well, posting a 10-2 win over Northwest High School as Mike Eisel went the distance, Drew Mahler smacked a pair of home runs and Steve Stefanik added another roundtripper.
The Generals then dropped a 6-3 contest to an 11-5 Clarksville High squad as "Devin Daugherty pitched great, but we had a couple bad breaks," said Ehrlinspiel. "In the top of the seventh, we loaded the bases and had the go-ahead run at the plate with one out, but we grounded into a double play."
Christian County (10-2) then pinned a 9-4 loss on Wooster, "but we were in that game until the end," said Ehrlinspiel. "We had two errors in the last inning that hurt and we just couldn't get the big hit."
On Saturday, the Generals faced Rossview High School (7-8) and dropped an 11-7 decision. "It was a back-and forth game," said Ehrlinspiel. "Anthony Klamic pitched well for five innings. He only allowed three earned runs, but when he came out we were losing 7-6. We tied it in the seventh, but we lost it in the bottom of the inning on a walk-off grand slam.
"It was a great experience, it really was," he said. "Every team we saw down there was a very strong team … every team could compete with the top-tier teams in Ohio. It was that level of talent. Even though it was disappointing to go 1-3, I'm definitely excited to see what the experience does for us.
"Our kids acted top-notch. Our behavior was great and they did what the coaches and parents asked of them, which is a tribute to them."
Wooster jumped right back into the thick of things this week. They resumed Ohio Cardinal Conference play Tuesday and Wednesday by splitting games with Lexington and played Massillon Friday night. The Generals (4-2 OCC, 7-6 overall) played New Philadelphia in a doubleheader Saturday.