JEROMESVILLE, Ohio — Hillsdale’s Shelbi and Sydney Long come by their love of the game honestly.
Their parents were two of the best players ever to come out of Hillsdale.
Shelbi, a senior third baseman, and sophomore pitcher Sydney will lead the Falcons into the Division IV state semifinals against Strasburg at 10 a.m. Thursday at Akron’s Firestone Park.
If they have any questions about playing on the biggest stage, all they need to do is ask their parents.
Kevin Long is arguably the best baseball player ever to come out of Hillsdale. He was the Wayne County Athletic League’s Most Valuable Player as a senior in 1987 before pitching for Kent State in the late-1980s and early-1990s, helping the Golden Flashes to a runner-up finish in the Mid-American Conference in 1991.
Jodi (Garn) Long was a three-time All-Ohioan at Hillsdale and a member of the 1992 state runner-up team. A rotator cuff injury cut short her collegiate career at Baldwin-Wallace.
Mom and dad don’t often discuss their playing careers with their daughters.
“The truth is, it doesn’t come up much,” said Kevin, the plant manager at Step2 in Perrysville. “They know I played at Kent, but that is about the extent of it.”
Jodi agreed.
“We haven’t really talked at all about when we played,” said Jodi, a middle school math teacher at Hillsdale who will take over as the high school athletic director this summer. “That’s the weird thing because Kevin and I both played so much, but it’s never been about us. We talk about them and what they need to do.”
What the Long daughters have done is terrorize opponents all spring.
Shelbi batted a team-high .484 while Sydney posted a 0.97 earned run with 141 strikeouts. She retired 21 of the final 22 batters she faced in Saturday’s 3-2 win over Plymouth. Shelbi scored the game-tying run in the fourth on Sydney’s two-out double to left.
“They have both done a great job for us,” Hillsdale coach Ben Bolen said after the game.
As a former pitcher, Kevin tries to help Sydney on the mental part of the game.
“I was able to learn that part of the game as I got a little bit older,” Kevin said. “When you are 15 or 16, that’s not something you think a lot about. We talked about her approach in different situations.”
The younger Long will have to be at her best Thursday morning. Strasburg pounded out 18 hits in its 12-8 regional final win over Leesburg. That outburst included three home runs.
“They are a hitting team,” Jodi said. “We watched them a little bit at a tournament earlier this year and just in the time we watched them I think they hit four home runs.”
Mom and dad will anxiously follow the action Thursday morning. They agreed sitting in the stands is more stressful than being out on the field.
“When you are playing, you feel like you have a little more control over what is happening,” Kevin said. “It’s hard to sit and watch.”
Added Jodi, “It can be stressful, but my nerves haven’t been too bad. They know what they are supposed to be doing. If they don’t know by know, they shouldn’t be there.”
So what advice do they have for their daughters?
“I told them to just play the game like you know how to play,” Kevin said. “There’s a lot of hype because it is the Final Four, but don’t try to do anything more than you would in any other game.”
