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Gehring’s arm rated among state’s best

CANFIELD — Early every evening, the reality of this year’s baseball-less spring hits home for South Range junior pitcher Jake Gehring.

“Me and my two brothers all play and my parents go to all the games,” Gehring said. “Every night, my mom checks the calendar and sees another game that was marked down that we won’t get to play. That’s probably the hardest part, sitting at home when we all should be having fun being outside and playing baseball.”

The standout right-hander, who is committed to Ohio State, was supposed to be the ace of a South Range team that had designs on another fun season after a Northeast 8 Athletic Conference title last season and a Div. III state championship two years ago. Instead, he will have to wait another year to take the field for the Raiders, while some of his senior teammates won’t get another chance.

“You just feel sadness more than anything,” Gehring said. “We had a great group of seniors that were ready to do anything to help the team, I was really looking forward to competing with them this year. There is nothing better than high school sports in my opinion, and it’s just really disappointing not to get the chance to play with your friends and represent your school.”

Gehring burst onto the scene as a freshman when he helped power the Raiders on their improbable run to the state title after finishing the regular season with a losing record. He allowed one run in both the district and regional semifinals, before firing a complete-game shutout in the state semifinal against Cincinnati Madeira at Huntington Park in Columbus.

He followed that up with a dominant sophomore season, in which he went 8-0 with a 1.13 ERA and a school-record 100 strikeouts. Coming into this season, Prep Baseball Report had named Gehring its Ohio Division III preseason Pitcher of the Year.

“I found out about that on Twitter,” Gehring said. “It’s a tremendous honor, and it’s very humbling. There is a lot of talent spread out across all of the divisions, and I think Div. III baseball is really strong in Ohio.”

Gehring committed to Ohio State before his sophomore season and said that Buckeyes head coach Greg Beals reached out to all of the recruits when the spring sports season was canceled.

“He said he felt really bad for all of us,” Gehring said. “There are still a lot of unanswerable questions, though. The whole recruiting scene has completely changed now with guys in college getting an extra year. I remain fully committed to Ohio State, but I have no idea how everything is going to play out over the next year.”

During the offseason, Gehring worked hard to refine his mechanics.

“My main goal, was just to smooth everything out with my mechanics,” Gehring said. “I watch a lot of guys in the major leagues and try to pick up things from them. My favorite to watch is probably Justin Verlander, although his body type at 6-foot-4 is a little different from mine at 6-1. I also love to Walker Buehler from the Dodgers and Sonny Gray from the Reds, who are both shorter guys. The explosion they all get with their lower half is something I try to emulate.”

He also wanted to add more variety to a repertoire that mainly featured a fastball and curveball.

“I worked hard on developing my slider more and adding a changeup,” Gehring said. To be successful at the next level, I’m going to need to command more than just my fastball and curveball.”

For the time being though, the only thing Gehring can do is try his best to stay sharp.

“I’ve been throwing about five-to-six times a week, some of it is maximum intent and some of it is about 50 percent,” Gehring said. “I’ve been doing some long toss in the yard and at local parks. We also have some close friends who have mounds that I’ve been throwing off of twice a week. When I’m not throwing, I’ve been lifting in the basement and running some sprints.”

Gehring is a member of the Release 17U travel team out of Cleveland and is anxiously awaiting to see if he can get back on the mound sometime this summer.

“We just have to wait and see,” Gehring said. “It’s all up in the air right now.”

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