Building off of the league successes and tournament near-misses of recent seasons, an experienced and senior-dominated Clay baseball team has found the right diamond chemistry to emerge as northwest Ohio's top Division I team with tournament play starting next week.
The Eagles — who are 15-1 overall and have already clinched an outright championship in the Northern Lakes League's Cardinal Division at 11-0 in league play — were ranked No. 11 in Ohio's latest D-I state coaches poll.
Clay received the No. 1 seed for northwest Ohio district play and will open the tourney with a sectional final at home on May 15 against the winner of a May 13 sectional semifinal between Bowsher and Norwalk.
“This group, the last couple years, has gotten a lot of varsity experience in a lot of big-game situations,” Clay head coach Jim Phillips said of the Eagles' senior leadership. “Playing for league and district championships, they have kind of embraced the moment.”
The league title is Clay's third in the past four years and the 30th all-time for this program, which has a rich baseball history. The prior two crowns came in the former Three Rivers Athletic Conference in 2021 and 2022.
Leafing through the program's highlights, in the past 30 years, Clay has produced three pitchers who reached the Major Leagues — Chris Fussell (1994 grad), Justin Thomas (2002), and A.J. Achter (2007). They are among many former Eagles to later play in college and several to reach the professional ranks.
After playing three seasons on Great Lakes League championship teams (1999-2001) as a third baseman/pitcher at Clay, Phillips was a four-year outfielder at Youngstown State. He also played football and basketball while at Clay.
Since playing its first varsity baseball season back in 1928 under the program's original coach, Harold Potter, Clay has had just five head coaches in the program's 96 seasons.
In his 10th season (minus the 2020 pandemic year) as head coach at his alma mater, Phillips (164-95 record) has the Eagles hoping to get over their recent hump in tournament play.
“As we continue to move through the season and play big games, we're going to take them in stride,” Phillips said. “It's not necessarily going to be too big of a spotlight for us. I think we're ready for the moment with the way we've been preparing all year.”
Clay's last district title came in 2012, when the Eagles ultimately lost 5-2 to Ashland in a D-I regional semifinal. Before that came back-to-back district titles in 2006 and 2007.
Last year, the Eagles lost 6-2 to St. John's Jesuit in a district final. In 2022, they fell 2-1 in eight innings in district semifinal against Northview, which went on to win the D-I state championship. In 2021, they lost 4-3 to Findlay in a district semifinal.
“Our district the last two years has produced a state champ [Northview in 2022] and a final-four team [Anthony Wayne 2023],” Phillips said. “So, we know it's not going to be an easy task.
“But, I think we're willing to take a crack at it. If we play like we're capable of, I think we're as good as anybody in northwest Ohio. We're prepared and ready for this moment — as ready as we're going to be.”
With the league crown secured, getting to a regional is now the primary aim of a battle-tested Eagles team that features eight senior starters.
Thet mound crew is led by the 1-2 punch of right-handers C.J. Boudreaux and Vinny Gallaher, who will both pitch at the Division I college level next year in the Mid-American Conference.
“They're two of the best that I've had the good fortune of coaching,” Phillips said of his duo. “They're both going D-I [college] for a reason. They're excellent players all the way around — hitting, pitching, and fielding — and they're two of the hardest working guys I've ever had.”
The 6-foot-1, 195-pound Boudreaux, who was the TRAC pitcher of the year as a sophomore in 2022, will join the MAC's top current baseball program at Bowling Green State University. His fastball has been clocked as high as 94 mph.
“The process is all building up,” Boudreaux said. “especially this year with all the seniors who have been playing together for a long time. Since about 8U or 9U [youth age levels], some of us have been together on teams. That's a big part of it.
“Coming into high school I think everybody around us knew that our senior year was going to be a big year because of our team chemistry.”
The 6-0, 190-pound Gallaher — whose father Tony was the 22nd-round MLB draft choice of the Atlanta Braves in 1989 as a pitcher out of Waite High School — will pitch at Eastern Michigan University.
Gallaher's fastball has reached 89 mph.
“As sophomores, me and C.J. were up on the varsity,” Gallaher said. “It's changed tremendously through the leadership of every senior. They've slowly started to turn this program into a good culture. All of us seniors are trying to carry that on and take this thing even further.
“The best thing about Clay is that it's a community. All of these seniors, I've been playing with them since the first T-ball team I played on. It's just something we grew up in.”
Boudreaux is 5-0 with just 11 hits allowed and an 0.54 earned run average in 26 innings. He has 48 strikeouts and 11 walks.
“Everything is going the way we want it to go out on the field,” Boudreaux said. “Coming in every day for practice we know what we need to do, and once we get out on the field it's not easy but it feels smooth because we prepare well.
“Coach Phillips says, 'How you do anything is how you do everything,' so we apply that to practice. If we have a good practice, and we take everything seriously and do everything we need to do, come game time we'll be ready.”
Gallaher is also 5-0, and has yielded 15 hits in 31⅓ innings. His ERA stands at 0.22 with 45 strikeouts and just six walks.
After pitching six hitless innings in a 4-0 win over Fremont Ross on April 16, Gallaher followed with a nine-inning no-hitter in his next start in a 3-0 win at Napoleon on April 24.
“This last offseason we had something set in mind that this was going to be our last year together,” Gallaher said. “As seniors, we don't have captains on this team because we feel we don't need one. Everybody's leading in a different way.
“We are all just happy to be on this team together, and we don't want to waste our chance with it.”
Clay's pitching staff has also gotten contributions from junior Landon Eversman (1-0, 3.82 ERA, 18⅓ innings), senior Al Sutton (1-0, 2 saves, 1.97 ERA, 15 strikeouts, 10⅔ innings), and senior Grady Spears (1-0, 2.42 ERA, 8⅔ innings).
Gallaher, Clay's regular shortstop and No. 3 hitter, leads the Eagles in hitting at .462 (24-for-52), with seven doubles, 15 runs scored, and 19 runs batted in.
Senior catcher Noah Schacht, who will play at Ohio Dominican, is next at .395 (17-for-43) with 18 runs.
“It's great,” said Schacht of catching Boudreaux and Gallaher. “It's like having two college-ready pitchers, so that's preparing me for the next level, as well. It also makes my job really easy. They are top guys in the area, so it feels special.
“I'm playing with kids I've played with since T-ball, so it's nothing new to me and nothing I didn't expect for us to be where we're at right now. Compared to last year, I feel like we're just so much more tightly knit, and we're more of a team rather than just players. We're in it together for the same reasons.”
Schacht is followed by designated hitter/catcher junior Hudson Byers at .375 (6-for-16), senior infielder Brock Fussell (Chris Fussell’s son) is at .370 (17-for-46) with 14 RBIs, and Boudreaux is at .365 (19-for-52) with two home runs, three triples, 18 runs, and 12 RBIs.
“I'm excited,” Boudreaux said. “We're about halfway through and everything's going well. Hopefully we can keep doing that.”
Batting .324 as a team, the Eagles have also gotten production from senior center fielder Drake Sekinger (.333, 15 RBIs), who will play at Lourdes University, senior first baseman Luke Jeremy (.326, 2 HRs), and third baseman/leadoff hitter Sutton (.298, 17 runs).
Clay has outscored foes 113-41 in 16 games, an average of 7.1 to 2.6 per game.
“Hitting-wise, this is the most depth that I've had in a lineup since I've been here,” Phillips said. “One through nine, I feel like there's not a lot of easy outs.”
In addition to sweeping two games each from NLL Cardinal opponents Springfield, Fremont Ross, Napoleon, and Bowling Green, Clay has also beaten NLL Buckeye Division foes Northview, 14-5, Anthony Wayne, 6-5 (8 innings), and Findlay, 7-5 last Thursday at Fifth Third Field.
The Eagles’ lone loss came on April 5, 9-3 to Henderson (Tenn.) Beech in the third game of a season-opening trip to Tennessee. They have won 13 straight games since.
Next up is a home test at 5 p.m. Monday versus NLL Cardinal member Southview, followed by a division game at Southview on Tuesday. Clay concludes league play with NLL crossover games versus Perrysburg on Friday and at Whitmer on May 17.
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