By SEAN FITZGERALD | sfitzgerald@news-herald.com | The Morning Journal
Patrick Scholla is a humble and compassionate, yet competitive and level-headed first year coach for the Avon Eagles. The promotion to skipper came after serving as an assistant coach for the past five years, and with the goal of improving from last year to this season.
He started out with two straight wins against archrival Avon Lake in late March and a third win against Mayfield as the calendar flipped to April. A perfect 3-0 start.
Then they lost to Elyria in the midst of the Pioneers’ seven-game tear, including a backbreaking 3-2 loss and a series sweep. A few days later, Scholla’s squad fell to Highland, which bounced Avon from the 2021 postseason, by 10 runs on April 8.
They were 3-3 and back to square one, with a tough conference matchup against North Ridgeville on the docket five days later. The new skipper and his squad could have folded, but didn’t.
Starting with North Ridgeville, they swept the Rangers and haven’t stopped winning. After beating Midview, 4-0, on May 2 behind senior Gavin Ehrhardt’s second career no-hitter, they have won 10 consecutive contests, boasting a sterling 13-3 mark.
“The biggest thing for me is these guys are buying into each other and playing for each other and with each other,” Scholla said. “Even in practice, we talk about how it’s never competing against each other, it’s competing with and for each other and making everyone better. That’s a testament to the culture that the guys on this team are building.”
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