By Kevin Price GCS Athletics The Glynn Academy baseball team will open a new season Tuesday at McIntosh County Academy, and the Red Terrors will play their home opener on Thursday against Ware County at Adam Wainwright Field in Brunswick. Both of these games are non-region games for the Terrors who will take them seriously, but Glynn’s focus is on winning region games and playoff contests. The Terrors return a strong nucleus from their 2022 team which tied a school record for wins while finishing second in Region 2-AAAAAA and advancing to the Class AAAAAA second round where they saw their season end with a pair of losses to state power Buford which went on to reach the state semifinals. Last year’s team was coming off a strong season the previous spring when Glynn also finished second in the region before making a run to the state quarterfinals in what turned out to the be final season for head coach Trent Mongero who announced his retirement shortly after the season ended. John Welborn, previously an assistant with the team, took over for Mongero last season and Glynn put together a 24-10 season which included a 13-5 record in the region. That record left the Terrors tied with Richmond Hill for the top spot in the region standings at the end of league play, but the Wildcats were awarded the league championship and top seed for the playoffs as they won two of three games over the Terrors during their region series. With a bevy of players back in the lineup, the Terrors have made winning the region title a primary goal this spring. “I’m excited about this team. I think we can do a lot of great things,” Welborn said. “The past two seasons, we’ve ended up a game shy of being region champs. We got together and decided that our mantra this year would be ‘Do something different.’ So, that’s been every aspect from how we practice, how we lift (weights), our nutrition, our sleep - all those things to try and get over the hump and bring home a region championship.” Winning the region will be no easy task, however. Though Richmond Hill has moved to Class AAAAAAA while Statesboro and Bradwell Institute are in Class AAAAA, the league still includes South Effingham and Effingham which were playoff teams from the region a year ago. Also, Brunswick has an experienced pitching staff with two seniors and a junior likely to be their top three starters. And, there are three new teams in the region, all from the Augusta area, and all three were playoff teams in Region 3-AAAAAA last season. Evans actually won the region and advanced all the way to the state quarterfinals before losing to eventual state champion Pope. Lakeside-Evans was the region runner-up and lost the deciding third game in its second-round series by a run. Grovetown was the third-place team in the region and lost in the opening round. Grovetown came to Brunswick back in 2021 to face Glynn in the opening round of the state tournament. The Terrors will build around a good group of seniors which will be in the starting nine most games. Senior center fielder Ty Devlin is back to anchor the GA outfield while bringing a big bat to the lineup, too. Senior Hugh Edgy will be the starting catcher and he also has shined on the pitching mound for the Terrors in the preseason. He started on the hill for Glynn in its preseason scrimmage last week against Pierce County which the Terrors won 14-1. Other senior standouts for the Terrors include Hank Noonan who is one of the team’s most versatile players and has good pop in his bat, too. Noonan is slated to start at first base this season, but in past years, he has played the outfield as well as second and third base for the Terrors. Also set to start at second base for Glynn this season is senior Brandon Casper. The other two infielders for the Terrors are junior stalwarts Gus Gandy and Trent Tankersley. Gandy started at shortstop for the Terrors as a freshman and sophomore, and will be back in that spot this spring while Tankersley started at the third base for the team a year ago and will man the hot corner again this season. The projected starters in the outfield along with Devlin are junior right fielder Grayson Gegg and freshman left fielder Wessley Roberson. As the season gets started, Glynn will be looking to solidify its pitching staff. Also set to see time on the mound for the Terrors are junior Luke Barch who pitched well as a sophomore last spring and sophomore Carson Ritola, a left-hander with good upside. Tankersley, Gegg and Gandy also could pitch for Glynn. The Terrors like their chances to put up crooked numbers on the scoreboard with a strong batting lineup. “Our kids have bought in to what we have been preaching,” Welborn said of the team’s overall approach at the plate. “We were gritty at the plate in the scrimmage, and that’s who we’re gonna be all year.”