Déjà Vu, Rewritten: Lake Center Christian wins state baseball championship

One year ago, Lake Center Christian walked off the field one run short of a state championship.

This time, the Tigers made sure the ending was different.

After spending 12 months carrying the memory of a heartbreaking 5-4 loss to Berlin Hiland in the 2025 Division VI state title game, Lake Center Christian finally got its revenge June 12 with a 2-1 victory to capture the program's first OHSAA baseball state championship.

And because sports occasionally enjoys a little dramatic flair, the final out came against the very team that had denied the Tigers a year earlier.

With two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning and the tying and winning runs aboard, Lake Center Christian's Caleb Shelly, on in relief, found himself staring down one final hitter. Nobody at 7 17 Credit Union Park was sitting. Nobody was breathing particularly well, either.

After working the count full, Shelly watched Hiland's Gerut Monigold foul off two pitches before unleashing a swing that came up empty.

Game over.

Cue the celebration.

The Tigers stormed the field after securing a victory that ended Hiland's bid for an unprecedented fourth consecutive state championship while delivering Lake Center Christian's long-awaited breakthrough. The win also capped a remarkable four-year stretch in which the Tigers won 101 games.

The championship game unfolded exactly the way baseball purists prefer and nervous fans despise: slowly, tensely and with virtually no room for error.

Neither team scored through the first three innings as both clubs repeatedly worked out of trouble. Hiland stranded runners. Lake Center stranded runners. Every inning seemed to end with somebody exhaling.

Grant Coblentz, serving as both Lake Center's leadoff hitter and starting pitcher, was at the center of nearly everything. The right-hander repeatedly escaped jams, allowing five hits and two walks while keeping the Hawks off the scoreboard. Behind him, the Tigers' defense handled every chance that came its way.

Lake Center finally broke through in the fourth inning. After Colton Smilek was hit by a pitch to lead off the frame, the Tigers loaded the pressure on Hiland's defense. A Hawks fielding error with the infield drawn in allowed Smilek to score and gave Lake Center a 1-0 lead.

The Tigers added what proved to be a massive insurance run an inning later. Aaron Zietlow worked a leadoff walk, advanced on a wild pitch and moved to third on a fly ball before Luke Heckert delivered an RBI single to right field to make it 2-0.

That was all the support Coblentz would need for most of the afternoon.

After cruising through a scoreless sixth inning, the senior took the mound in the seventh with Lake Center Christian three outs away from history. A groundout started the inning, but Hiland refused to disappear quietly. Logan Yoder singled and Isaiah Wagler doubled into the left-field corner, trimming the deficit to 2-1 and bringing the tying run into scoring position.

At 105 pitches, Coblentz's day was finished. Shelly moved from shortstop to the mound and immediately recorded a huge second out when left fielder Paul Dussel hauled in a soft liner.

One batter later, Shelly delivered the strikeout that Tigers fans will be talking about for a very long time.

The celebration that followed lasted nearly as long as the tension that preceded it.

While Friday supplied the trophy, Thursday supplied the opportunity. Lake Center Christian punched its ticket to the championship game with a 5-3 victory over Galion Northmor in the Division VI state semifinals.

Unlike the nail-biter that followed, the Tigers wasted little time taking control. Coblentz was hit by a pitch to open the game, promptly stole second base and scored moments later when Shelly ripped a triple over the Northmor center fielder's head. Nathan Bryant followed with a sacrifice fly, and Brayden Myers later added an RBI single as Lake Center raced to a 3-0 lead in the first inning.

The Tigers stretched the advantage to 4-0 in the second when Zietlow capitalized on a series of Northmor miscues before scoring on a Coblentz RBI single.

Bryant handled the rest.

The right-hander was dominant through four innings, allowing just two hits while helping Lake Center build a cushion. Northmor eventually scratched across three runs without recording an RBI hit, scoring twice on balks and once on a wild pitch.

When the Golden Knights began to chip away, the Tigers responded again. Myers doubled in the fifth inning, and another Northmor error allowed Heckert to score and push the lead to 5-2.

From there, the bullpen closed the door. Shelly bridged the middle innings before Coblentz returned to the mound for the final five outs. The senior struck out three batters during a 1 2/3-inning save that preserved the victory and sent Lake Center Christian to its second consecutive state championship game.

Twenty-four hours later, the Tigers finished the job.

One year after watching Hiland celebrate, Lake Center Christian was finally the team staying on the field.

And this time, there was no need to wonder how the sequel would end.