Ohio City - It's mid-May, time for the annual trip out 1-71 to Strongsville High School to compete in the OHSAA Division I District Baseball Tournament.
The usually one-sided Sectional games are over, my friends, and now we begin "The Run," in the words of Saint Ignatius' veteran Head Baseball Coach Brad Ganor, that every high school baseball player in the area anticipates or dreams of after he puts on a pair of spikes or takes a cut in the batting cage for the first time on the Varsity level.
Yes gentlemen, this is why you spend those indoor winter hours in the balcony section of Father Sullivan Gymnasium honing or developing your skills.
On Monday at 2 PM, Coach Ganor's Varsity Baseball Wildcats, the top seed at the Strongsville District, will begin a quest for what baseball players at Saint Ignatius dream of the moment they enter Coach Ganor's program - a shot at playing in the OHSAA Baseball State Tournament the first weekend in June.
It is always a challenging road, one Saint Ignatius Baseball has negotiated many times and one, now and then, in which the Wildcats have been turned away. Such as last season, when the Strongsville Mustangs ended Saint Ignatius' season at the District Final level.
You only have to see the fire in the eyes of Wildcats dynamic junior second baseman AJ Gaich, "our lightning rod," as Coach Ganor refers to AJ, to realize that the 2018 Wildcats have a bitter taste they are determined to get rid of.
Monday's first major step will send Saint Ignatius against a familiar postseason foe, the fourth-seeded Baseball Bears from North Royalton.
Wildcats four-year Varsity Player and senior co-Captain, southpaw Tommy Grosel (5-0), will take the mound.
As we pointed out on the corner, there is some recent District history between Saint Ignatius and North Royalton.
In 2014, en route to their first State Final Four appearance in baseball, the North Royalton Bears defeated Saint Ignatius, 5-2, in the District Championship Game at Strongsville. The very next season, the Wildcats, on their way to a State Semifinal appearance, edged North Royalton, 3-2, in eight innings in what was a District Semifinal at Strongsville.
The Mustangs of Strongsville snapped Saint Ignatius' eight-game winning streak in last year's District Championship Game on the Mustangs' home field and Strongsville went on to finish as the Division I State Runner-Up to Massillon Jackson.
North Royalton has been playing some solid baseball. The Bears, behind 18 hits, recently prevailed over Stow on the Bulldogs' home diamond, 12-9.
The victory gave the Bears a share of the Suburban Conference National Division League regular season title, marking the first time the Bears have finished first in the regular season since 2006.
Among those keying North Royalton's offense this spring are Zach Mueller, Zac Pokorny, Kyle Farrell Joey Marousek, Nick Campagna, Domenic Carriero and Brandon Bielak.
The Bears' Junior Varsity Program recently lost to the outstanding JV program from Saint Ignatius, 5-4.
The other half of Monday's District Semifinals at Strongsville will match the second-seeded Brecksville-Broadview Heights Bees against the third-seeded Strongsville Mustangs at 5 PM.
Monday's winners will play for a District Championship on Tuesday at 5 PM on the Strongsville diamond.
Brecksville-Broadview Heights defeated 10th seeded Parma, 6-0, in this past week's Sectional Final on the Bees' field of dreams and Strongsville, the defending District Champion, advanced by eliminating sixth-seeded Normandy, 5-1, in a Sectional Final at the home of the Mustangs.
Among some of the names to watch for the Bees, or "The Swarm," if you will, are Joe Labas, Tommy Barth, Tommy Doyle, Mitch Macy, Evan Luikart, Sam Wiglusz, Jordan Shaheen and Zach D'Anna.
The Bees' Coaching Staff recently described their seniors as a group with exceptional character and selfless leaders for the younger players.
Brecksville-Broadview Heights won its 10th conference baseball title (Suburban) since 2007 this spring.
As for Strongsville, the Mustangs traveled to perennial power Massillon Jackson on Saturdaynight and lost a highly competitive 2-1 game to the Polar Bears. In other recent games, Strongsville lost to Mentor, 9-1, and defeated Elyria, 13-8.
In its 5-1 sectional-final victory over Normandy, the Mustangs turned to their senior ace, Matt Brosky, who threw 101 pitches in a complete game three-hitter. Brosky struck out 11 and walked three.
Keying Strongsville's offense against Normandy was Austin Mucurio, who went 3-for-3 at the plate with 2 runs scored and an RBI. Jack Frank, Joey Venter and Giovanni Lombardo are some of the other Mustangs capable of making things happen offensively.
Okay, there you have it. Just a little Diamond Dust in encouraging you to take off work early on Monday.
We will see you in historic Strongsville, where many of the main streets in the city are named after principal figures and landowners from the city's history, such as Howe, Drake, Shurmer, Whitney. Of course Strongsville High School, one of my homes away from home during my Plain Dealer career, resides on Lunn Road.