Successful road for Bates, Redbirds finally reaches pinnacle

LOUDONVILLE — It was almost as if Tyler Bates could finally exhale Saturday night.

The 11th-year Loudonville girls basketball coach stood near mid-court at Massillon Perry High School – a grin on his face that refused to fade – soaking in reality.

You got the sense he almost wanted to drag a sleeping bag onto the court and just tell the Perry post-game staff to head home and that he would lock up for them.

Bates and his Redbirds were going to the Final Four. Of all the moments for a coach to wish he could slow down time, this was it.

Nearly an hour after Loudonville had put a bow on its 40-14 pummeling of New Middletown Springfield – after the medals had been passed out, the trophy had been raised and both the youth and high school student sections had rushed the court – it was seeping in.

Bates’ Redbirds had collected at least 20 wins in five of the seven seasons before this one. They had started 25-0 once. They had seized seven consecutive league titles.

Despite all those highs, they had never captured a moment like Saturday night.

At times while talking to media, it seemed Bates had memories from his childhood, his high school career and his time as a coach bouncing around in his brain like a pinball.

The Wayne County boy grew up watching his hometown Orrville High School stockpile state titles. Boys basketball championships came in 1992, 1995 and 1996, then football in 1998, boys track in 1999, volleyball in 2003.

“I grew up in Orrville and it was ‘Title Town’ in the 90s,” he said, “so all of us kids that came through there felt like we were going to the state tournament every year.”

It might have appeared simple then. He found out for himself that it wasn’t quite like snapping your fingers.

Bates finished his high school years at Smithville where, as a junior, the basketball team he helped lead got as far as the Sweet 16. His senior season, the squad won the Division III state poll, then lost by five to eventual state champ Cleveland Central Catholic in the Elite Eight.

Not long after he began his coaching career – as part of the Loudonville football staff in 2014 for one of the most explosive teams in Ashland-area history – the Redbirds got to the Elite Eight before falling to Kirtland.

And with LHS on the basketball court, five different 20-win seasons finished in heartbreak, with just one district title in that mix (2021).

Bates’ 2019 campaign ended with a one-point loss to a Chippewa team that made the Final Four.

“When we lost our 2019 (seniors to graduation), I was devastated,” he said Saturday. “I’m like, ‘We’re never going to have another chance at this.’ ”

All of the past close calls were bubbling up from his memory bank in vivid detail Saturday night.

But no more close call this time. This was an exclamation point on a season he knew could be special.

A few days before the season tipped off, he told me as much.

“I remember our first year here in 2013, we had a great group of seniors that were really motivated to have a winning record and be proud of the season that they had here at Loudonville,” Bates said.

“Those seven seniors were really a launching pad for us to take off in the direction that we headed over the next decade.

“They said, ‘We’re not content with just winning three, four or five games a year, we want to have success.’ Once our kids tasted some success, they wanted more and more, and that’s where we’re at now.”

Then these Redbirds took off like a rocket.

On the way to last Saturday night, Loudonville won its first 15 games, finished a perfect 15-0 at home and was ranked as high as No. 4 in the state.

Some of the ’Birds’ margins of victory dropped jaws.

Bates, still just 33 years old, stacked victories as the winningest basketball coach – boys or girls – in Ashland County history (he has 202 entering Thursday).

In the midst of it all this season, he and his wife, Whitney, welcomed a second child, a daughter, into the world in late January.

Things probably seemed like they were happening in fast-forward plenty of times.

Then Saturday – on a night LHS became the first in Ashland County basketball history to win 26 games – an exhale.

Bates said he would have images from the night stuck in his head forever.

“I felt like tonight was a validation of our program’s hard work,” he said. “The community came out and supported us, the girls were locked in, the coaching staff was locked in, and it’s just a great feeling.

“We’re gonna go out tonight as a team with the parents and just enjoy this.”

They went to a nearby Chili’s, where they didn’t leave until around 11 p.m.

Likely running on adrenaline, Bates sent out his customary email to area media wrapping up the stats and details from the unforgettable win at 2:30 a.m.

“You do want to keep striving to play for that last weekend down in Dayton,” he told me before the season. “If you’re not there yet, the job’s not done yet.”

The 1980-81 Mapleton girls, the 1991-92 Loudonville girls and now the 2023-24 Loudonville girls. Just three girls basketball teams in the nine-school Ashland area have made it this far.

The seventh-ranked Redbirds (26-2) get one more guaranteed game at 11 a.m. Thursday at the University of Dayton against sixth-ranked Waterford (23-3). It’s a team Loudonville got a glimpse of when they matched up during a game last summer.

“Physically, basketball is such a hard game,” senior Ms. Basketball finalist Corri Vermilya said. “But mentally, if you have the mindset and every person on your team believes that you’re not losing that game, I truly, honestly believe we’re not losing it.”

One more potential contest could follow at 10:45 a.m. Saturday. If the Redbirds get there and win it, they will be the first Ashland-area girls basketball state champion.

“Andy Booth, (the girls basketball coach) at Wadsworth, is one of my mentors,” Bates said. “He told me, ‘You know, you’ve just got to keep pounding the door and you can break it open eventually.’

“For us to finally break that door open – not just for our program, but for the whole athletic department, it’s been 20 years (since a Final Four appearance at the school) – it’s just surreal.”