By Nicholas Huenefeld

Special to the Sentinel-Tribune

MILLBURY — Mike Kohlhofer, who pitched the Lake baseball team to a district championship as a sophomore in 1985 and currently serves as a varsity assistant coach with the program, has now also witnessed two of his sons — Gavin and Ryan — lead the Flyers to regional tournament appearances.

“As a parent, it’s really a different beast because it’s that pride thing, just watching things unfold,” Mike said. “Being able to see them experience the same thing I did as a player and the excitement that they had was kind of cool.”

This past Saturday, Mike was in the dugout as Gavin – Lake’s starting catcher and leadoff hitter – went 2-for-4 with a run and a walk in a come-from-behind 8-4 win over Ottawa Hills in the district championship.

The victory, which saw the Flyers overcome a four-run deficit after the first inning, gave the team a berth in regional play, where they will open against Bucyrus Wynford at 2 p.m. in a semifinal on Thursday at Patrick Henry High School.

In 2012, Mike wasn’t in the dugout, but he watched on as a parent as Ryan led Lake to a regional tournament appearance with a 5-4 win over Otsego in the district title game. In fact, that game as well as this past Saturday, were both held at Defiance High School.

Ryan was also on hand to witness his younger brother become the third Kohlhofer to earn a regional berth.

“I thought he played very well, and I’m just extremely proud of the way he carried himself, even when things didn’t go well and weren’t going well in that first inning,” Mike said. “I’m proud of all the kids on the team, but when it’s your kid, you have that pride.

“It was very exciting. I didn’t really think much about it until it happened. I was like, wow, that’s three district championships for us. It’s kind of a neat thing for us to be able to share and talk about it down the road.”

The legacy begins

The story started in 1985, where Mike began his first of three seasons as Lake’s top starting pitcher on a team led by then first-year head coach Greg Wilker.

“(Wilker) had his hands full,” Mike said. “We were quite a group, quite honestly. We had some characters, but he did a great job with us. He was able to keep us focused as best he could. And he was new to the school. He had only been a teacher for one year, so he did a great job of getting to know everybody.”

In the district title game, Lake went up against Lakota, a team that was 18-3 and featured one of the area’s top offensive teams. Mike, who pitched all five of his team’s tournament games, retired the first six batters he faced while his offense jumped out to a 5-0 lead through two innings as Lake won 6-2.

“We jumped on them really quick, and then we just kind of held on,” Mike said. “We played really good defense. I don’t remember much from play to play. I was really locked in through all those games.”

Mike did remember one at bat from the tournament, against Rodney Hampton of Fostoria in the district semifinal.

“It was probably a 10 or 12 pitch at bat,” he said. “I threw everything I knew to throw at him. He hit, I think, three out foul. It went from, ‘hey I’ve got to get this guy out’ to, ‘hey I just want to keep this ball in the park.’ I think he ended up doubling off the center field fence.”

Before falling to eventual state champion Bellevue 5-2 in the regional semifinal, Mike pitched the team to a 2-0 win over Rossford in the sectional final that season, which Wilker said was a powerhouse program at the time. The Flyers finished the season 15-15, which included four regular season games after the regional loss.

“Mike got on a roll,” Wilker said. “He had an outstanding curveball, and he knew how to pitch. We came on and had a really good season.”

Wilker’s first year at Lake was as JV head coach in 1984, which was Mike’s freshman year, so he knew what Mike was capable of in his first season at the varsity helm.

“Our facilities weren’t very good back then,” Wilker said. “We’ve come a long way in terms of batting cages and the baseball field. We had a wet, rainy spring and got off to a slow start (as a team). But I coached him as a freshman, and I knew Mike’s ability.”

Mike went on to pitch two more seasons with Lake, where the team advanced to the sectional championship each year before falling to Otsego in each of them. He had 11 strikeouts in the final as a junior, and he tossed a three-hitter in a sectional semifinal win as a senior.

“Those years were a bit of a struggle,” he said. “We should have done more than we did on the baseball field. My senior year was really a blur. It went so fast between playing sports (football and basketball) and just the things you do as a senior.

“My senior year was like, I hate to say it, but it’s over and I’m moving on, going into the real world. It was kind of weird. It just happened, and it was gone.”

And that’s a lesson he tries to teach the guys now as a coach.

“Before you know it, it’s over,” he said. “You have to embrace every moment, especially now this time of year. I thought as a sophomore, ‘we’re going to do this again next year,’ and it never happened. It was just hard to take, hard to see, and that’s one of the things I like to try to pass on to these guys when we get to this point in the season. We’re still playing. Embrace every moment.”

Mike is now in his seventh year as the JV head coach at Lake in addition to his assistant varsity duties. He started coaching at the school after taking a job at the school’s maintenance department. Prior to that, he made a career in the automotive industry out of high school but found time to volunteer as a coach over the years, as well.

“Mike is just a tremendous teacher of the fundamentals,” Wilker said. “He’s worked quite a bit with his kids. He’s outstanding.”

Ryan’s 2012 regional run

Ryan Kohlhofer helped lead the Flyers to a regional semifinal appearance as a senior in 2012, earning Honorable Mention All-Northern Buckeye Conference recognition along the way.

A reserve on Lake’s district runner-up team as a freshman, Ryan helped his team get back to the district tournament as a junior, but the Flyers fell in the semifinals.

As a senior, though, he had a team-high two hits in the district semifinal win over Archbold, and he helped Lake hold off Otsego in a 5-4 win in the district final.

“Ryan was a three-year starter,” Wilker said. “He was a tremendous infielder and great hitter. He just loved the game, loved playing the game. He got it from his father. He won a lot of games and went on to play at next level and had a really good career. He was just a great kid.”

The team suffered a 16-6 loss to Bloom-Carroll in the regional semifinal despite a two-run single from Ryan but claimed an NBC title and finished the season 24-6. It was the second of two league titles for him.

A .300+ career hitter for the Flyers, Ryan now serves as a police officer. Following his time at Lake, he played four years at Defiance College, where he was a four-time all-conference player while hitting .312 over 148 career games.

“Defiance was an absolute blast,” he said. “I would do it again if I could no questions asked. I was afforded the ability to play 90 percent of the games at a smaller school, which I may not have been able to do if I went D-II or smaller D-I college. I made lifetime friendships from those teams.”

‘A left-handed Ryan’

Wilker, who retired following the 2021 season, was in attendance for Lake’s district championship win over Ottawa Hills, and he’s been at several games this year. Including Mike, head coach Casey Witt and assistant coach Brandon Maze are former players of his.

And during that time, Wilker has noticed something about Gavin.

“He’s a left-handed Ryan,” he said. “He has the same swing and looks like Ryan.”

The team’s starting catcher and leadoff hitter, Gavin is a combined 6-for-10 with four runs, two RBIs and two walks in three postseason games. He is second on the team in batting average at .365 on the season along with eight doubles, a home run, 17 RBIs, 39 runs, 25 steals and a team-high 23 walks.

He has multiple hits and has scored at least one run in each of the team’s three postseason games.

“Watching Gavin play was nostalgic,” Ryan said. “To watch him grow up and play baseball and see the player he’s turned into today is amazing. He’s way better than I was.

“(As a family), winning three district titles is special because I don’t think it’s something that’s heard of too often, and to do it in a small community, a community we all grew up in.”

Gavin is already a two-time All-NBC catcher as a sophomore.

“I would say defensively I’ve improved a lot,” he said. “My defense has been really, really good compared to last year. I think the bat has slowed down a little bit, but I think I made up for it defensively.

“This year has been a blast. The guys I’m with are really fun. They’re always encouraging. They always have my back. It’s always been like that from the start.”

Gavin, who despite being too young to remember Ryan’s regional run, remembers hanging out in the dugout and yelling behind the plate as a child.

And he has one goal this week, to go farther than Ryan did.

“(This family story) is pretty cool,” he said. “I honestly didn’t even know my dad won a district title. It’s just sweet to say we all were able to do it. I just want to be better than my brother to be honest. I want to win the regional.”

Looking ahead

The Flyers (25-4), after claiming the program’s 11th district championship since 1955, will have their hands full on Thursday, battling Bucyrus Wynford (21-8), a team that has won 15 of their past 17 games. Should they win, they would advance to Friday’s 5 p.m. regional final against the winner of fifth-ranked Coldwater and 10th-ranked Marengo Highland.

The Flyers have advanced to the regional final four times – 2003, 2001, 1978 and 1956. Two of those teams – 2001 and 1956 – advanced to the state semifinals. Despite the regional tournament not existing at the time, the 1935 Lake team also advanced to the state quarterfinals after taking down Greenwich and Salem in the district tournament.