Columbus-area players fuel Cuyahoga Community College baseball's memorable comeback season
With a three-season hiatus in the rearview mirror, the Cuyahoga Community College baseball team is driving toward a chance to play for its first national title.
Helping to lead the charge for the Triceratops are 10 central Ohio players who have found a home, at least temporarily, at the Cleveland-area commuter school commonly known as Tri-C.
“This is pretty sweet we have these many kids from Columbus on the team,” said Mason Koons, a 2022 Hilliard Bradley graduate. “I knew some of the kids, but I didn’t know we would have this many.”
Although the central Ohio players hope to move up from junior college to NCAA programs, their first goal is to make history with the Triceratops, who spent three seasons away from the field but avoided extinction.
Tri-C missed those three seasons because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 season was canceled because of the pandemic, and school officials decided to continue the suspension of athletics for the next two years.
All 10 of the central Ohio players — they comprise one-third of Tri-C’s roster — are freshmen who lost their sophomore season of high school baseball to the pandemic. In addition to Koons, they are Cole Archual (Worthington Kilbourne), Jackson Judy (Kilbourne), Kyle Koehler (Pickerington North), Gavin Mangus (Newark), Silas Moore (Dublin Scioto), John Nhem (Gahanna Lincoln), Layton O’Rourke (Lancaster), Ty Pangborn (Newark) and Braden Reed (Gahanna).
The Triceratops (28-10) open the NJCAA Division II Region 12 tournament Thursday with a three-game series at home against Lansing (Michigan) Community College. The regional champion advances to the four-team, double-elimination district championships May 18-20 in Jackson, Michigan, and the district champion moves on to the 10-team JUCO World Series, which is May 27-June 3 in Enid, Oklahoma.
Tri-C went 17-3 in the Division II portion of its Ohio Community College Athletic Conference schedule to capture its first conference title since 2016.
“It’s been really exciting,” coach Kyle Stahlberg said. “I think we’re blowing people’s expectations away for year one. It’s been really fun. The guys are having the times of their lives.”
Stahlberg was hired in February 2022 and immediately began recruiting in central Ohio.
“We had a vision for the type of guy we wanted to get in,” he said. “I spent a lot of time looking in the Columbus area. There was a wealth of guys that I thought were high-quality people that would fit the type of person that we wanted to bring in, and they were also very talented. We went really hard after that group of 10 because they checked every box that we wanted.”
Koehler committed to Tri-C in June and has thrived at the plate while playing through an injury. He tore the labrum in his right throwing shoulder while diving for a foul ball during the first game of the fall season but decided to hold off on surgery, which is scheduled for June 27.
Although he has missed time this spring after reaggravating the injury, Koehler is batting .411 with a team-high eight home runs, along with seven doubles, two triples, 38 RBIs and 28 runs scored. He has played some outfield but mostly has served as the designated hitter.
“I’ve been battling back since last fall,” Koehler said. “I had the choice in the fall to get surgery then, but I chose to play this season and plan on getting (surgery) right after the season ends. It’s important I be there for my team. I’m trying to help my team win. It’s good to know that we came here and did exactly that and, ultimately, I made the right choice.”
In his senior season at North, Koehler led the Panthers in batting average (.493), hits (36), RBIs (27), home runs (8) and doubles (8). His home runs set a single-season program record, and his 10 career homers tied the program mark.
Koons has scored a team-high 45 runs and is batting .422 with nine doubles, one triple, three home runs and 33 RBIs. He has seen the majority of his time at second base after committing in March 2022 despite an offer from NCAA Division III Ohio Wesleyan.
“I’m happy I came here,” he said. “It’s a good place.”
Judy has been strong on the mound, going 3-0 with one save and a 1.23 ERA. He has 18 strikeouts and five walks in 14⅔ innings.
Moore, an outfielder, is batting a team-high .446 with seven doubles, five triples, two home runs, 18 RBIs, 28 runs scored and 14 stolen bases, and Reed, an infielder and outfielder, is batting .371 with 11 doubles, two triples, four home runs, 25 RBIs and 20 runs scored.
Archual (outfield, .361), Mangus (pitcher, 1-1), Nhem (pitcher), O’Rourke (pitcher, 3-1) and Pangborn (pitcher, 2-2) also have contributed.
“I could have never thought that we’d have 30 guys whose chemistry, whose focus and whose maturity would be what it is,” Stahlberg said. “They’re unbelievable. This group is amazing. They’re (mainly) freshmen, but they’ve all bought in. As players, they run the team from an accountability perspective.”
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Central Ohio players fuel Tri-C baseball’s comeback season
