Perhaps more than anyone in Northeast Ohio, Scott Stricklin loved the record warm temperatures Northeast Ohio had this winter.

That’s because Stricklin is head coach of the Kent State baseball team, and the weather allowed his team to do something northern college baseball teams rarely get to do: practice – outside.

“It helped out a lot. We were on the field I believe it was January 20^th… We’ve been able to get out. WE inner squaded early on. And before we played our first game at Georgia Tech we were on the field for three or four weeks. The last  game, our first game of the season against Georgia Tech, we hadn’t been outside yet. The first time we were outside was game one.”

Stricklin also credits players like pitcher David Starn, who went in the seventh round of the Major League Baseball draft this week, a catcher named David Lyons, who lasted through all 21-innings of a regional game against Kentucky last weekend, and what Stricklin calls a whole team of “blue collar tough kids” who love the game.