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Vindicator Fall Athletes: Landon Baer
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South Range was a stacked team this year, loaded with experienced seniors who have been playing together since elementary school. Somebody had to keep the Raiders organized on the field and that task fell to Landon Baer.
It’s not a flashy job like playing striker or in goal, but Baer, along with senior co-captain Brooks Thomas, were the Raiders’ field generals.
“Being a center-mid along with Brooks, we’re the two leaders on the team right in the middle of everything,” Baer said. “We control the pace of the game, but being co-captains, we also have to control our teammates. You have to be a leader with your actions and emotions.
“I’m not a loud person, I’d rather lead by example than yelling someone to do something or voice my opinion.”
A natural fit for the midfield, Baer can run box-to-box to battle for the ball. Between the two co-captains, Baer was the guy who gets possession of the ball, whether by air or by tackling an opposing player. Once he did that, he could either direct the team himself, or let the more offensively inclined Thomas take over.
“Your team chemistry is so much better, it gets better and better over time,” Baer said. “Eventually you work with someone long enough, you don’t have to talk to them. You can just give them a glance and know, ‘Oh, he’s about to do this, so I should do this’ and it just works.”
South Range went 16-4 and was the first Raiders’ sports team to make a state final, where they lost, 9-0, to Cincinnati Summit Country Day.
“It’s great for the community,” Baer said. “It was a great showing for our community down in Columbus, but it just meant so much for our school and our friends and family to be the first one to make it and we’ll go down in history no matter what.
“It’s been a heck of a journey, we got better every year and it’s not much more that I can ask for,”