By: Nate Calvin
Archbold grad Kade Kern has bursted onto the scene for the Ohio State Buckeyes baseball team this spring. In his first few weeks at the college level, Kern lead the Buckeyes in batting average (.338) hits, RBIs, on-base percentage and steals.
“It’s a deadly combination,” said Ohio State head coach Greg Beals in a recent interview.
“He’s intelligent and he’s willing to work. The thing that I like is his batting average, the traditional numbers are good, the numbers that most people see are pretty good.”
“The numbers that we keep, his quality at-bat, his hard-hit average, those things are even better.”
“Freshman year you don’t know what to expect. You don’t know if you’re going to get playing time,” said Kern.
“It’s an experience thing. Every game going out there is more experience. Trying to get more and more reps, just keep getting better. So far, as a team, we’ve been pretty happy with how we’ve been doing.”
“Kade’s a complete player too,” said Beals. “He’s playing center field at Ohio State. It’s not like he’s just a freshman that’s a big, strong kid that can hit it a little bit.”
“He’s playing center field and hitting fifth on a pretty good baseball team right out of the gate. This is a complete player.”
Nate can be reached at publisher@thevillagereporter.com