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Genoa will have a new baseball coach in 2012.
Who that will be has not been determined, but that person will have plenty of experienced underclassmen in his talent pool.
Dan Thompson, who went 67-37 in four years with the Comets, resigned at the end of the 2011 season due to conflicts with his position as a math teacher at Perrysburg High School. Thompson, 46, lives in Millbury.
“My schedule was not conducive to driving to Genoa every day,” he said. “It had nothing to do with Genoa. They were very good to me. I really enjoyed working with the kids when I was there. They changed the schedule at Perrysburg to where we get out (of class) 20 minutes later.”
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| Dan Thompson |
Thompson was the junior varsity baseball coach at Perrysburg for 16 years before taking over at Genoa. Thompson served under Perrysburg head coach Dave Hall, who just completed his 26th season with the Yellow Jackets.
Thompson's Comets went 16-13, 22-5, 16-9 and 13-10 during his four seasons. This year's team went 8-3 in the Suburban Lakes League and tied for second place with defending champion Elmwood. Lake won the SLL championship, beating the Comets twice in the final week of the season.
“We were picked anywhere from third to fifth in the league,” Thompson said. “We knew Elmwood and Lake were going to be pretty good. Both of our games against Lake got rained out the first time around, so we played them two out of last three league games of the season. We only had the one league loss, to Elmwood, at that time. We upset Elmwood earlier in the year at their place.”
The Comets' first game against Lake was tied 3-3 after five innings before rain halted play. The two teams met three days later in another regularly scheduled game and the Flyers earned a 3-0 win. Genoa and Lake later completed the rain-delayed game and the Flyers won again.
Genoa suffered 15 rainouts this season and did not make up six of those games. After beating Scott in the Division III sectional opener, the Comets lost at Elmwood in sectional finals.
“I’m not going to say we overachieved,” Thompson said. “We thought we could be there in the SLL and I thought we played to our potential. We were pretty young in the infield. We played a freshman (Casey Gose) at shortstop and we started a sophomore (Sam Reinhart) at second base, so we were young up the middle.
“We would get into stretches where we wouldn't play well defensively and that cost us some games. When we played well defensively, we did well. We beat Clay (7-6) late in the season and turned around a few days later and lost to Lake 3-0. Hitting-wise, we hit the ball very well. I was very pleased with our lineup.”
Two Comets, senior outfielder Seth Dufendock and senior first baseman Seth McWatters, hit over .400. Dufendock made first-team All-SLL and McWatters was a second-team pick.
“Seth was a four-year starter and had an outstanding year, and Seth McWatters hit over .400 batting second,” Thompson said. “They got on base quite a bit and were very good base runners. Garrett Scott hit third and hit about .380, and Luke Sutter hit well over .300 as our cleanup hitter.”
Sutter, a senior pitcher, earned second-team all-league honors.
“He had a good season on the mound,” Thompson said. “His ERA was not what he wanted it to be. He had a couple of rough outings against (D-I state runner-up) Perrysburg and Northwood. He was our workhorse in the league. He had two tough losses against Lake at the end of the year.”
Scott, a senior outfielder, made the All-SLL second team, while junior catcher Jarrod Adkins and senior outfielder Matt Murphy were honorable mention selections.
“Matt had a real good season for us,” Thompson said. “He hit about .315 and played well in the outfield.”
The Comets will also have to replace senior third baseman Matt Keaton, leaving Adkins, Reinhart and Gose as the only returning starters next season.
“They're going to lose a lot of pitching,” Thompson said. “They're going to have to get some pitching, because Sutter and Scott did most of the pitching and McWatters also pitched.”
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