'We all got to run the bases well and advance ourselves': Mogadore baseball utilizes speed

GARRETTSVILLE — The ball trickled toward the first baseman, pulling him away from the bag, and you just knew.

Mogadore's leadoff hitter Corey Lehner, racing down the first-base line, wasn't going to get beat to that bag.

"Yeah, no way," Lehner said. "No way."

Two batters later, Devin Graham hit a soft chopper toward the third baseman and you had that same creeping feeling.

Sure enough, Graham beat the throw for another infield hit as the Wildcats pulled away with six runs in the inning.

"We don't got power, but Corey and I are speed guys," Graham said. "So get the ball down and get down the line. That's what we're taught. As soon as it's hit down, get out [of] the box and get going."

If Mogadore showed off anything in a 12-4 victory over host Garfield Wednesday, it was its blazing speed, a trait that goes beyond simply Graham and Lehner.

"From one through nine, we think we probably have six or seven guys that can flat-out run," Wildcats coach Chris Williams said. "We like to be aggressive on the bases. That's always been our approach. We get on, we want to make the other team make plays."

Indeed, even Mogadore's cleanup hitter — a spot reserved for pure power hitters on many teams — is a menace on the bases, as Austin Constantine took arguably the most aggressive leads of the afternoon when he charged way down the third-base line over and over again.

"Obviously, looking at all of us, we're not the biggest players," Lehner said. "We're not a big power team, so we all kind of got to run the bases well and advance ourselves."

A natural leadoff hitter returns to Mogadore

Lehner was born to be a leadoff hitter. There was just one issue for the Wildcats these past couple of years — they couldn't put him in the leadoff spot because he chose to run track and field, instead.

Lehner is back on the diamond this year, and proved the perfect spark when he pulled a low pitch under the diving first baseman with one out in the third. The senior proceeded to steal second, then raced home on a fielder's choice.

Yes, Lehner went from second to home on a groundout.

"I knew right when Devin hit it, I knew I had a chance to score because it was a pretty hard-hit ball," Lehner said. "It got there pretty quick, but I knew they weren't focused too much on me because they were trying to get the out at second. I knew if I had my head down and sprinted, I knew I could get there."

Graham, who reached on that fielder's choice, proceeded to steal second and third.

"We're all aggressive on the bases," Graham said. "That's what Coach Chris tells us: be aggressive on the bases. Passed balls, we're going. If it's anything in the dirt, we're reading it. Got to get there. We don't [have] the power to hit the gap shots and get doubles [and] triples all day long, so [we] got to hit the easy ones and get it going."

The Wildcats' speed helped in all sorts of ways Wednesday.

In the fifth, when they scored four runs to triple their lead (from 2-0 to 6-0), the second of their five straight two-out hits was set up by the first-base runner.

Constantine hit a grounder to where the shortstop would ordinarily be, but with Graham stealing second on the pitch, the shortstop was forced to cover the bag, and Constantine's grounder went untouched into the outfield for an RBI.

Normally, the inning would be over. Thanks to the Wildcats' speed, it was just beginning.

Corey Lehner, Devin Graham have the outfield covered for Mogadore

Who's the fastest player on the team? Lehner pointed at himself. Graham had to agree.

Lehner noted that Graham is probably the next-fastest player on the team.

Needless to say, the two make for one heck of an outfield duo with Lehner in left and Graham in center. Seemingly everytime the G-Men barreled up a ball, it ended up in one of their gloves.

In the second, Aidan Hill blasted a low pitch to deep left, but Lehner calmly backed up to make the catch. The next batter, Alex Carter, sent a shot toward the right-field gap, but Graham was there, racing over to make the catch.

Both read the ball beautifully. Both made hard plays look routine.

That's what Williams has come to expect.

"Not much is dropped in the outfield," Williams said. "We think that when we take the outfield, we could probably have one of the better outfields in the state in our division, the way those kids read the ball off the bat, as fast as they are."

With great defense, great speed and a plethora of pitching talent highlighted by Cole Reese and Ronnie Skye, this Wildcats team is way better than its 9-6 record.

Two of their six losses are to Lake Center Christian, one of the top Division IV teams in the state. And Reese tossed a gem Tuesday in the Wildcats' 2-1 loss to the Tigers.

Another loss came against Warren JFK, another Division IV power. Two more losses were to Copley and Cuyahoga Falls, far bigger Suburban League schools.

In short, underestimate the Wildcats at your own peril.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Speedy Mogadore High School baseball is a legit threat in Division IV