GHS

                Gibsonburg and Toledo Christian tied for the Toledo Area Athletic Conference baseball championship. Gibsonburg Golden Bears looking to repeat title. Gibsonburg received four first-place votes and 56 voting points to earn the favorite’s role in a preseason coach’s poll, and Toledo Christian picked up one first-place nod and 50 points to edge Tiffin Calvert for second in the poll.

                “I appreciate their respect, but there’s a lot of other good teams in the TAAC,” 12th-year Gibsonburg coach Kyle Rase. “It is competitive night in and night out, so it’s going to be a hard conference to win. “The keys for us will be that we have to find who can play in certain positions depending on who is pitching. We have a lot of returning starters and a deep pitching staff. We have to figure who’s going to play their position when they’re on the mound. Another key will be replacing last year’s seniors and their leadership. We had a great group of seniors.”

                Gibsonburg (21-8, 11-3) brings back five starters plus two other letter winners from a team that lost 4-3 to Toledo Christian in the D-IV district final last May.

Returning for the Golden Bears are seniors Preston Arriaga (OF-P, 5-1 record, 2.17 ERA) and Brent Hayward (P-C-OF), and juniors Madison Jaso (IF-P, .346 average), Ryan Clark (IF-P, .318, 6-3, 2.92 ERA), and Bryce Mendoza (IF). Key new comers are Marcus Tille(OF), Erik Jahna(OF), Brad Mendoza (C-3rd), Fred Sisco(P-OF).

“We have an experienced pitching staff, and early practices have been going well,” Rase said. “We hope to be competitive every night in the TAAC.