Regional baseball: Medina doesn't blame weather in loss

CANTON — There was plenty of rain, thunder, lightning, weather delays and even a postponement over the course of Thursday and Friday. One thing there wasn't were excuses from the Medina baseball team after a 3-2 loss to Perrysburg in the Division I, Region 1 final at Thurman Munson Memorial Stadium. The Bees (24-6) and Yellow Jackets (23-8) were scheduled to play the game at 5 p.m. Thursday but, as she has all spring, Mother Nature interfered with that game and the one before it, pushing the start time to 8:42. The game preceding them finally finished at 5:32 pm after a 30-minute delay at the start and a 62-minute delay in the sixth inning. Perrysburg and Medina then sat through a weather delay as the skies opened and thunder and lightning hit the area for the third time in the day. The game finally began at 8:42 but was stopped at 9:38 with the teams tied 2-2 in the middle of the third inning. It resumed Friday at 6 p.m. and took just 61 more minutes. Perrysburg scored in the top of the fifth to take a 3-2 lead and the Bees never could answer, but they weren't going to blame it on the rain or the craziness of the last 26 hours. "A little rain comes through and it's nothing for us," Medina senior Zeylen Yanmaz said. "We just wanted to get on the field and kick some (butt)." When asked how difficult the situation was for the team, senior Brayden Smigel said it wasn't. "Difficult is a word you could say for a lot of stuff, but I wouldn't call it that for (Thursday)," Smigel said. "We've been through delays, we've been through rain. We had the same type of thing happen with Mentor for one of our (Greater Cleveland) conference games that we needed to win so that we could win our conference. It didn't affect us then and, honestly, I don't feel like that affected us now." As for the multiple delays Thursday, the Bees' closeness as a group kept the waiting from impacting them. "We are probably the most mentally tough team I've ever seen, I've ever played with," Yanmaz said. "We just care about each other and this game more than anything in the world. We pray together before every single game. We're a family. We talk to each other about anything and everything, and it's not just during the season. It's all offseason. We're there for each other when anything happens." The Bees spent a lot of time during the delay in the practice facility at the stadium, sometimes taking extra batting practice and sometimes just laying around on the ground talking. They weren't discussing final grades or the NBA Finals, however. "We were so hyped up and ready to go that it was all baseball talk," Smigel said. "(Things like) what are we going to do to win, and then we took it on to the field and unfortunately had to stop (Thursday night)." They didn't allow the postponement and extra trip to Canton to take away from their focus Friday. "I think we had a great mentality on the bus," Smigel said. "We were ready to go. Everybody was hyped up and ready for this game. I think we really kept it the whole way through, but we just had some unfortunate times." The attitude started with seniors Smigel, Yanmaz, Lincoln Briggs, Nolan Frank, Ethan Acurio, Nick Kaplack and Landon Briggs, which was why coach Mark Kelly wasn't worried about his team heading into Thursday or Friday, whenever the game would be played. "It starts with our seven seniors. They're just fantastic," Kelly said. "Nothing fazes them. Our preparation was fantastic. You know, our (batting practice) in the cages, our (infield and outfield warmup) was very good and these guys were ready." His players echoed the sentiment. "We were ready to go," Yanmaz said. Contact Ryan Isley at sports@medina-gazette.com.