At age 17, Conner High School’s Ayden Lohr is already laden with lore.
“He’s a special guy,” Cougars baseball coach Brad Arlinghaus said of the multi-sport athlete and 15th-ranked member of this year’s Conner senior class, according to grade-point average. “He’s accomplished a lot.”
While playing sports and games with family and friends as he was growing up, Lohr noticed something about his various abilities that eventually led him to a special place in Conner history.
His aim is true.
“I guess I’ve kind of always been good at aiming things,” said Lohr, a basketball and baseball standout.
Whether it was a ball or any object that can be tossed, Lohr discovered over time he could throw or shoot something so that it goes pretty much where he wants it to go.
“Playing Nerf basketball. Shooting wads of paper in the wastebasket. Throwing plastic bottles in the trash can from long distance, stuff like that,” Lohr said.
It turned out to be good practice for a bigger stage.
Lohr, a 6-foot-2 guard on the hardwood and a pitcher/outfielder on the diamond, was the only Ninth Region athlete named a 2022-23 Northern Kentucky Basketball Coaches Association all-star and a preseason all-state selection on the 2023 watch list by the Kentucky High School Baseball Coaches Association.
“It comes naturally to him, but he works really hard,” said Arlinghaus, last season’s Ninth Region baseball coach of the year. “In a world where most specialize in one sport, he excels in two. And he’s a really good student, a great guy, and that’s rare.”
More specifically, Lohr, the 2022 Conner homecoming king with a 4.357 weighted grade-point average, is a good aimer.
“He can put the ball in the basket. He can put the ball in the strike zone,” Arlinghaus said. “In his first game back after being a little banged up, he threw out a guy at home from center field.”
As a senior basketball player for the Cougars, Lohr posted solid across-the-board shooting percentages, converting 48% from the field, 42.4% from 3-point range and 73.6% on free throws while averaging 13.9 points per game. Those numbers were similar to his junior season when Lohr helped lead Conner to its first-ever district championship three-peat.
In baseball last year, Lohr helped the Cougars set a single-season wins record (29) and a team runs scored record (284). On the mound, he won six games with a 1.36 earned run average while striking out 29 batters and walking eight in 36 innings. He ranked second on the team in wins and ERA. He ranked fourth among starters with a .384 batting average and second with 12 doubles, 42 runs scored and 28 stolen bases and was named to the all-Ninth Region Tournament team.
Through the first three weeks of this season, the speedy leadoff hitter was second on the two-time defending district champions with a .385 batting average including team-high totals in hits, triples and runs. He ranked second in doubles and steals. Lohr is not easily thwarted or fooled. He was caught stealing a scant two times and struck out just 13 times in his first 167 varsity at-bats.
One of 13 Conner seniors, nine heading to college programs, Lohr got into one game on the mound through the first three weeks while battling injuries.
“He hasn’t even been fully healthy. He banged up his left non-throwing shoulder in the district basketball final, then he felt something in the other shoulder. And his back was bothering him, so we held him out a bit and played him some at DH,” Arlinghaus said. “I’ve got enough pitching, so I don’t need him on the mound. I do need him in center field. And I do need him at the top of the lineup. He makes our offense go.”
Lohr, a veteran of the Cincy Flames baseball organization, is taking the hardball path at the next level with a verbal commitment to NCAA Division III Ohio Northern. He hopes to hit and pitch. To that end, he added a knuckleball to his arsenal as an off-speed pitch, something that tested his penchant for accuracy. As knuckleballs do, they veered, sailed and hit the ground, but eventually hit their mark.
Just like everything else during Lohr’s sports journey, mastering the pitch was a collaborative effort.
“Nobody liked catching it,” he said. “But I was eventually able to control it just by playing catch with my dad and (Conner senior player) Brayden Stidham. Our catchers (Logan Tucker and Luke Hubbard), they’re calling it when it needs to be called and catching it when it needs to be caught. They all have helped me with it.”
That’s something else Lohr aims to do well: Keep spreading the love.
“I was raised to respect and appreciate everyone around you,” he said. “You can’t do it by yourself. That’s what I’ll miss most about high school sports, playing with close friends and supporting each other. It’s been a lot of fun.”