Gazette Spring Coach of the Year: Jay Grissom's pep talk inspired Highland in regional run

An early-season league loss gave coach Jay Grissom a chance to send his veteran Highland baseball team a message. The Hornets received it loud and clear and made the program's first run to regionals since 2018. For that, Grissom has been namedd Gazette Spring Coach of the Year. After a perfect 14-0 season in Suburban League American Conference play in 2025, Highland lost its second conference game of the season 2-0 to Revere on a no-hitter, just one day after a 12-1 win over the Minutemen. "We talked about it at our first team meeting the day after tryouts ended and just said you're coming off a year where you went 14-0 in conference play, you are getting everybody's best effort every night," Grissom said. "(The loss to Revere) was good for us, because watching them after that game, they celebrated like they just won the World Series. So they're celebrating and we're standing in the outfield for our postgame meeting and it's just a nice little reminder that this is what we're getting every night moving forward, and everybody in Northeast Ohio knows about this team, and you know that's the effort that you're going to get every single time that we play, so if you show up unfocused and not ready to go, this is what can happen." From that point forward, Highland won 11 of its final 12 SL American games and finished the season 18-6 overall. The Hornets won their second straight league title, with the other loss coming to Tallmadge. "It was a constant discussion throughout the season, and I think the guys handled it very well," Grissom said. "You're going to lose a couple of games because it's really hard to go undefeated in baseball, but I do think they handled it very well." One of the things that helped Grissom and Highland was the fact there were 13 seniors — Dan Miller (P), Casey Myser (OF), Grady Gibb (1B), Lucas Gerding (OF/P), Parker Janickas (2B), Reid Oney (P), Nick Dobkowski (3B), Cole Fernandez (C), Cooper Richnafsky (P), Liam Zielinski (OF), Cameron Lovejoy (OF), Will Rogus (2B/SS) and Joshua Butcher (P). "That's a special group of kids that had unbelievable careers in all sports here," Grissom said. "We were excited about those guys after Day 1 of tryouts when they were freshmen, and I told them that story after our last game, and I think it was just a special group of kids for sure." It wasn't just a collection of players that met each other in their first day on the Highland campus, either. "Those guys played together when they were little guys, too," Grissom said. "There were a lot of pictures flying around towards the end of our season of them playing 8 and 9U baseball together here at Highland, and some of their fathers that were keeping GameChanger for us and everything else. It's just a tight-knit group of kids that have played a lot of baseball together." Once the postseason began, the Hornets worked their way through two teams from Massillon in the Division II, Northeast 1 District, defeating Perry 8-1 in the semifinals and Massillon 9-0 to capture their first district crown in eight years. "District titles are a special thing," Grissom said. "I've been a part of five coaching staffs (at Highland) that have been able to get through a district, and it's a really hard thing to do. The kids had it as a goal from Day 1, and they went about the work that it takes to get themselves ready for those games and, to be honest, dominated both of those games and really didn't give the opponent much of a chance." The jubilation was clear on the faces of the players that day in Struthers when they received their medals for defeating Massillon. "This is awesome," Myser said on the field following the win. "This is our first gold one. We never got one between football, baseball, basketball, anything, so this is sweet. It's going to be a nice one to hang in the room." The Hornets were not satisfied with just winning a district title, however, and their coach knew that once you get to the regionals with just 16 teams left in a division, it could be anybody's game on any given day. The players were just as excited as the coach, keeping an eye on everything happening in D-II. "It's a cool thing when you get down to that final 16," said Grissom, who was also Gazette Spring Coach of the Year in 2018 when he led Highland to its only state tournament appearance. "It was fun watching the guys. They're watching all the other scores, they're looking at the brackets, they're looking at what's going on in the South and then the Central, and you have GameChanger running and, oh, my gosh, Lakewood has a tough game against Wadsworth. That was happening while we were at a practice one night, and I just love seeing how excited the kids were to play in that type of atmosphere." The season ended with a 2-0 loss to eventual state runner-up Walsh Jesuit in the regional semifinals. It was the second meeting of the season between the teams, with Highland defeating Xavier commit Caleb Mecurio 2-0 in the regular season before falling to Tennessee commit and possible MLB Draft pick Shawn Sullivan in the postseason. When the final out was made and the season had ended, Grissom and his coaching staff met with the players to convey their appreciation for what the team had achieved not only this season but over the past four years. "Those are tough conversations, because it's hard to digest the game four minutes after the last pitch was thrown," Grissom said. "We spent a lot of time just talking about how proud of them we are and how much I appreciated them allowing us to come along that ride with them. I was very honest with them. I've been at Highland since 2006, and that is as talented and as good of a group of players as we've ever had. They need to be proud of everything that they accomplished. "I wanted chins up and proud boys walking off that field that day, because they accomplished a lot through their careers. Three league titles in four years for that particular group, two league titles each of the last two years, a combined 26-2 record in conference the last two years. That's the type of stuff that I don't know will ever be repeated. It's OK if it stings a little bit, but I wanted them to find a way to be proud of everything that they accomplished during their careers." Contact Ryan Isley at sports@medina-gazette.com.