ASHLAND – In a way, Luke Bryant and Ethan Bunce might just be baseball’s equivalent of conjoined twins.
Both Ashland High School seniors, both on their way to play collegiately, both contributing in huge ways for the Arrows since their respective freshman seasons.
But what weaves the two together even more is that they have been a varsity pitcher-catcher battery that entire time — Bryant as one of the most talented arms in the history of the program and Bunce as an extremely rare four-year catcher for a Division I program.
“We’ve got high expectations for each other; I push him, he pushes me,” said Bryant, a 6-foot-1, 195-pound fireballing right-hander bound for Ohio University. “We both know what we have to do to be as prepared as we can be going into (college) and we push each other to do just that.”
Now in his sixth season leading the AHS program, Rick Gough has been a baseball coach in some capacity at Ashland for 34 years. He said he doesn’t ever remember a battery performing together on varsity as long as Bryant and Bunce.
They are part of a six-man senior class that has led the Arrows to their best season (16-6, 9-5 Ohio Cardinal Conference) since the senior-led 2012 squad finished a few outs from advancing to the Final Four.
“Anytime Luke takes the hill, we’ve got a good chance of winning,” Gough said. “And Ethan, in his four-year career, he’s only been injured for one game. … Besides that, he’s been steady as a rock back there.”
Through Thursday, Bryant was 4-2 this season with a 1.47 ERA, a career-high 66 strikeouts and just 12 walks in 43 innings pitched. His mix on the mound has included a four-seam fastball, sinker, slider and changeup.
In his most dominant start of the season — an April 29 home outing against Ohio Cardinal Conference runner-up Wooster — the righty whiffed 11 batters and finished an out away from a no-hitter.
Usually sitting around 90 miles per hour with his fastball, Bryant said he touched 93 on the radar gun that day. He had a 1-0 lead in the seventh, but a walk and a two-out single helped the Generals tie it, and the Arrows lost 3-1 in eight innings.
Bryant took the blame for the defeat, but said it was probably the most dominant he’s been start to finish in his career, especially when considering it came against a talented Wooster squad.
“Although we didn’t get the win, that was a pretty good performance,” he said, “and it wasn’t just me — the defense behind me was outstanding.”
Behind the plate, Bunce has been the leader of Ashland’s defensive unit for more than three seasons. The right-handed hitter has played in 83 of the Arrows’ 93 games since 2021 and still remembers Bryant joining up to pitch a few games on a rec ball team coached by Bunce’s dad, Larry Bunce, when they were in eighth grade.
Their baseball relationship only grew from that point.
“Knowing tempo is one of the biggest things that people may not notice,” Bunce said when talking about his link with Bryant. “Knowing what he likes to throw in what counts, and with the tempo, if it’s not what he wants, just being able to switch over to something else.”
“It’s been nice,” Bryant added of the pitcher-catcher connection. “I feel like he knows me pretty well, knows what I like to throw in certain spots.
“And it gives him an advantage, too. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not an easy guy to catch, but him doing it for going on five years, he’s handled it pretty well.”
Bunce has collected more than 220 varsity at-bats with the Arrows and will finish his career with more than 70 hits, 40 runs and 35 RBIs.
Entering Thursday, he had a .340 batting average this season as the squad’s No. 2 hitter, but the jaw-dropping number comes in his .561 on-base percentage. Unbelievably, Bunce has been hit by a pitch 18 times in 82 plate appearances — matching his number of hits for the season.
Bunce said he leads the team in getting hit every year but said it’s not like he’s leaning over the plate. He said it just happens.
“I don’t know if he’s going up there to hit or get hit anymore,” Gough said with a laugh.
Bunce considers himself a “move the line” type of hitter who helps set up the offense for his teammates. He had a sense he would try to play college baseball during his sophomore season and committed to NCAA Division III Wilmington College last fall.
“Obviously, I’m not the guy throwing 93 and getting a scholarship to go (to Division I Ohio University),” Bunce said, “but I was excited when I finally committed to Wilmington.”
He and Bryant both will end up as three-time All-OCC players.
Bryant arrived in Ashland in seventh grade after moving from Fort Collins, Co.
Gough said that if he could name a five-man starting rotation at AHS in his 34 years involved with the program, Bryant would be on it. He’s the first player the coach has had earn a Division I scholarship.
“He has high expectations for himself and he gets a little bit agitated when his teammates don’t put in the work that they need to,” Gough said. “He’s worked harder than anybody I’ve ever had.”
Bryant has 13 wins and 185 strikeouts over 139 2/3 innings in his career. He hasn’t had an ERA over 1.50 since he was a freshman and was the OCC’s co-Pitcher of the Year as a sophomore (5-3, 1.15 ERA).
After suffering elbow tendinitis and nerve issues in his arm last spring following his commitment to OU — which limited him to just 26 1/3 innings — Bryant has bounced back big in 2024.
Gough said his maturity and experience have helped him cut down on allowing free passes, something that hurt Bryant in key spots in the past.
Along with his big numbers on the hill, he has been Ashland’s cleanup hitter all season, driving in a run-away team-high 27 RBIs while also leading the Arrows in batting average (.406), slugging percentage (.547) and hits (26).
It’s a huge offensive jump for a guy who had just 19 career hits entering the spring.
“My ultimate goal of this season was to help this team win, but also to get myself better prepared for the fall (at OU),” Bryant said. “That’s what I’ve been looking forward to my whole life; I finally get the chance to do it and I’m going to do everything in my power to get ready for that the best I can.”
Bringing the right type of leadership into the season with the rest of the senior class was critical. Bryant and Bunce said this year’s group has shown the best leadership of their careers.
“Everybody’s holding everybody accountable and it’s showing on the ballfield,” Bryant said.
The rest of the senior unit includes Owen Shade, Logan Fulk, C.J. Cox and James Kinney. Shade aims to play at Cuyahoga Community College, and all of the seniors have contributed in different ways to help guide the Arrows to what has become a banner season.
Bryant, Bunce and Fulk all are four-year lettermen while Cox and Shade are three-year letter winners.
“It’s a group that I’m going to miss a bunch because they’ve been good to the program and have done well,” Gough said. “They’ve improved every year.”
Ashland is 10-2 at home, 11-3 over its last 14 games, 5-1 in one-run games and handed OCC-champion Mount Vernon (19-3, 12-2) its only two league losses this season (7-6 and 6-5 on back-to-back days).
Had they not lost extra-inning games to Wooster and New Philadelphia, the Arrows would have OCC runner-up.
“It’s been, top to bottom, a very good year for our whole lineup,” Bunce said, “especially if you compare it to previous years.”
“We’ve had a lot of exciting games … and luck has, for the most part, been on our side,” Gough added.
“In the past, when teams have punched us, we’ve wilted. This year, they’ve done a great job of battling.”
Bryant said the team is shooting for 20 wins, something it won’t be able to do without a home win tonight against a good Hillsdale team and a solid tournament run.
Ashland, seeded seventh in its Division I district, opens tournament play at home 5 p.m. Wednesday against 12th-seeded Toledo St. John’s. A sectional title that night will send the Arrows into a district semifinal May 22 at Bowling Green’s Carter Park.
“Right now, I’m dead-set on Wednesday and what I have to do to be as prepared as I can be,” Bryant said. “It’s been a good season, but we’re not finished.”