Coaches Todd Ery and Brian Jones recap what the spring trips revealed about their teams

Spring break is over for the Maumee Panthers, and both the baseball and softball programs came home from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina with more than just wins.

Panthers baseball coach Todd Ery and softball coach Brian Jones both joined Inside Maumee Athletics fresh off their trips, and between the two conversations, a clear theme emerged: these aren’t just teams that are talented. They’re teams that are figuring out who they are.

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Baseball: A Team That Won’t Quit

Coach Ery’s baseball squad went 3-1 on the trip, bumping the Panthers to 4-2 on the season. But the record only tells part of the story.

It was the first time in three Myrtle Beach trips — dating back to 2019 — that Maumee was able to play every scheduled game, JV and varsity alike. For a program trying to sort out roles and get arms stretched out early in the season, seven games in a few days is exactly what the trip is designed to deliver.

“The opportunity to play four games in nicer weather was really good for us to get meaningful reps for players we’re trying to figure out where their roles fit,” Ery said.

On the field, the Panthers were tested. Every game was close, and in the final game of the trip, Maumee fell behind 4-0 before the first inning was even over. A younger or less mentally tough team might have let that one get away.

They didn’t.

“This team doesn’t have quit in them,” Ery said. “You take the scoreboard out of the equation — you can’t control that. You can control your effort.”

The Panthers came back and won. It’s the kind of resilience that Ery has leaned on all season, captured in a simple team motto: Deny the circumstances. Don’t let what’s happening around you dictate what you do from one inning to the next.

The Moment Nobody Saw Coming

Ask Coach Ery what he’ll carry with him from this trip and he doesn’t point to a varsity win. He goes straight to a Wednesday morning JV game that turned into something nobody in the Maumee program is going to forget.

The JV Panthers were down 14-1. Time limit baseball meant the clock was ticking, and with two outs in what looked like the final inning before expiration, the game appeared over.

Then Maumee scored six runs.

Walk-off win.

“One of the most legendary things I’ve ever seen as a coach,” Ery said.

The varsity guys — required to be there to support — watched the whole thing unfold. The celebration that followed was something else entirely. That’s the stuff programs talk about for years.

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Softball: The Best Trip Yet

Over on the softball side, coach Brian Jones brought his Panthers to Myrtle Beach and came back calling it the best trip the program has had — and he meant it.

Maumee went 2-1, facing Boyd County out of Kentucky, a South Carolina program that had made the state Final Four a couple of years back and a New York squad still shaking off a week of snow. Three different states. Three programs the Panthers had never seen before.

That’s intentional.

“You don’t hear about them, you can’t really scout them,” Jones said. “You start paying attention — their pitcher warming up, their outfielders in infield. You might pick something up that goes a long way in a very important game.”

It’s the kind of mental preparation you can’t get from playing conference opponents for the third time. When postseason arrives and Maumee faces an unfamiliar program, the girls will have a framework for how to handle it … because they’ve been there.

Built for More Than Wins

The structure of Jones’ Myrtle Beach trip is worth noting. After games, players get a few hours of free time for beach, family, whatever they need. Evenings bring the team back together for dinner and team bonding at the Hangout. And the room assignments? Far from random.

“We pair up maybe a freshman and a senior that might not know each other,” Jones explained. “They get to build that camaraderie down there, and then when you come back, they trust each other better and they play better together.”

It’s a small detail that reveals something bigger about how this program operates. Team chemistry isn’t something Jones hopes happens. It’s something he engineers.

Locked In When It Counts

But the thing that stood out most to Jones this year wasn’t the record or the competition. It was the way this group mentally showed up every single time it was game time.

In past years, that first game could be a little rough — heads still at the beach, energy pointed somewhere else. Not this year.

“Every time it was ready for softball, it was, OK, phone away, distractions aside, let’s go play,” Jones said. “And when softball’s done, I’ll go back to the real world.”

For a coach, that’s the dream. A team that can fully enjoy the experience and then completely flip the switch. You can’t coach that directly. A team earns it.

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Now, the Real Season Starts

Both programs come home with momentum and head straight into Northern Buckeye Conference play. Baseball is at 4-2. Softball is at 4-3. Key NBC matchups are just around the corner for both squads.

Based on what Ery and Jones shared, the Panthers — on both diamonds — are worth watching this spring.

Catch both conversations on the latest episode of Inside Maumee Athletics wherever you listen to podcasts.