Coe Baseball

Mildren makes it happy 4th of July

A lucky Kernels fan bid $85 and won the patriotic jersey that Ethan Mildren wore during Friday night's game against Beloit on the 4th of July.
If Mildren keeps pitching like this, that jersey could become a collector's item.
Midlren tossed a shutout for seven innings as the Kernels blanked Beloit, 3-0, before a season-high holiday crowd of 5,564 fans at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
When it was over, Mildren literally took the shirt off his back and gave it to the lady who made the winning bid during a silent auction.
Mildren happily signed the back of his jersey as he stood in front of the Kernels dugout.
"It was fun to pitch in front of all these people, especially on the 4th of July and given them a win, too," he said.
It was the second straight gem for the 6-foot-4 right-hander from Pennsylvania. He also tossed seven shutout innings against Clinton in his previous outing last Sunday.
"That was quite a performance by Mr. Mildren," said Kernels skipper Jake Mauer. "Back-to-back. Fourteen innings. No runs. That's pretty good."
Mildren, 23, has allowed only seven hits during those 14 shutout innings, with 10 strikeouts and just three walks. All told, he has not allowed a run in his last 15 2/3 innings for Cedar Rapids.
Mildren feels like he's found a groove and improved as a pitcher this year.
"I've been getting ahead in the count lately, working both sides of the plate pretty well," he said. "I'm really getting ahead with my fastball and it's opening up my other pitches."
Mildren raised his record 3-5 and lowered his ERA to 4.03 for the season. He enjoyed a stretch of 11 straight scoreless innings in April, but also has had a few bumps in the road.
"A lot of my outings earlier, a goofy inning kept coming back to get me," he related. "I've been working on that mentally. Once I get a guy on, just try to get a ground ball and get a double play and get out of it."
Mildren threw about 90 pitches before reaching his pitch count and giving the ball to the bullen. Dallas Gallant pitched a scoreless eighth inning for a "hold" and Todd Van Steensel tossed a scoreless ninth for his eighth save.
Cedar Rapids (36-48) struck early for two runs in the first inning. Zack Granite led off with a triple into the right-field corner and was able to trot home on a long, towering two-run homer by Bryan Haar with two outs.
Granite needed to trot home, because he tweaked his left leg on the triple and left the game an inning later.
Haar, a Midwest League all-star, socked his team-high 12th homer of the season and has 47 RBIs, tied with Mitch Garver for the team lead. Haar has moved into the cleanup spot in the order with Garver on the Disabled List and has done good work.
"He's carried our offense in the past week-and-a-half or so," noted Mauer. "He's done what we've needed him to do."
Mildren worked efficiently with catcher Michael Quesada, who helped the cause by throwing out two runners, once on a caught-stealing and once on a pickoff. Meanwhile, Mildren worked tidily along and allowed only one hit through six innings.
Mildren walked two batters in the fifth inning and escaped unharmed, partially because Quesada picked a guy off second base. He allowed two hits in the seventh, but escaped when first baseman Chad Christensen made a sparkling running catch of a foul ball near the Kernels bullpen.
Mauer liked what he saw of Mildren.
"I think he's being aggressive," said Mauer. "You can see, his stuff is not overpowering. He keeps it down, moves it around. He got a lot of ground balls, like he did against Clinton.
"He's not backing off and nibbling. He's going right at guys, letting them put it in play and keep the game moving."
Mildren, a good athlete, scored more than 1,000 points as a high school basketball player in Pennsylvania. He pitched at the University of Pittsburgh, where he made the Big East Conference all-star team, but did not play basketball in college.
"I wasn't tall enough," he said. "They didn't need a 6-4 guy who plays center and shoots 3's."
The Minnesota Twins grabbed him in the 12th round of the 2013 draft. He was a relief pitcher in the Twins farm system last season, mostly because he threw more than 100 innings in college that year, but he's become an effective starter for the Kernels.
"I'll try to keep this going as long as I can," he said.
"I don't know how his jumper looks," said Mauer, "but his fastball is pretty good. It moves around."
The struggling Beloit Snappers lost their 10th game in a row. The same two teams meet Saturday at 6:35 p.m. and Sunday at 2:05 p.m.

BELOIT (0): Mercedes, ss, 4 0 0 0, Pan, 2b, 4 0 2 0, Chapman, dh, 3 0 0 0, Brugman, lf, 4 0 0 0, Mathews, rf/1b, 3 0 1 0, Baez, 3b, 1 0 1 0, Marincov, rf, 2 0 0 0, Boyd, cf, 2 0 0 0, Vollmuth, 1b/3b, 3 0 0 0, Chavez, c, 3 0 0 0. Totals 29 0 4 0.

KERNELS (3): Granite, lf, 1 1 1 0, Williams, ph/lf, 3 0 0 0, Vielma, ss, 3 1 1 0, Christensen, 1b, 4 0 1 0, Haar, 3b, 3 1 2 2, Swim, dh, 3 0 1 0, Kanzler, cf, 4 0 1 0, Quesada, c, 4 0 1 0, Murphy, rf, 3 0 1 0, Walker, 2b, 3 0 0 0. Totals 31 3 9 2.

Beloit     000 000 000 - 0 4 0
Kernels    201 000 00x - 3 9 1

Finnegan, Roberts (5), Bayless (7) and Chavez. Mildren, Gallant (8), Van Steensel (9) and Quesada. W - Mildren (3-5). L - Finnegan (6-6). S - Van Steensel (8). 2B - Christensen (13). 3B - Granite (2). HR - Haar (12). SB - Haar (1). E - Gallant (1`). T - 2:32. A - 5,564.

Utley earns top honor on IIAC team

Cedar Rapids Prairie grad D.J. Utley has been named the Position Player of the Year on the Iowa Conference all-star baseball team.

Utley, a junior first baseman for the Wartburg Knights, hit .407 with seven home runs and 37 RBIs this season. He led all conference players in on-base percentage and home runs, ranked second in batting average and slugging percentage, third in doubles and total bases, fourth in RBIs and seventh in hits.

AJ Reuter of Coe was named to the first team at first base. Pitcher Connor Alberhasky and shortstop Craig Konrardy of Coe were selected to the second team. Michael Redmond, a Linn-Mar grad, received Honorable Mention for the Kohawks as an outfielder.

Ben Rettenmeier, a Jefferson grad, was named as a first-team pitcher for Wartburg.

Coe baseball team ousted from tourney

The Coe baseball team lost to Simpson, 4-2, in the losers bracket Friday and was eliminated from the Iowa Conference Tournament at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

The Kohawks ended the season with a 15-24 record.

Linn-Mar graduate Michael Redmond went 2-for-4 for Coe with a double.

AJ Reuter (4-4) allowed nine hits and three earned runs in 5.1 innings and took the loss. Gage Reis (4-5) was the winning pitcher for Simpson (21-21).

Kohawks ripped by Central, 12-0

The Coe baseball team had problems with its pitching, hitting and defense Thursday in the opening round of the Iowa Conference baseball tournament Thursday at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

The unhappy result was a 12-0 loss to Central College in seven innings.

The Kohawks (15-23) will face Simpson (20-21) in a loser's bracket elimination game Friday at 10 a.m. at the stadium.

Connor Alberhasky was raked for nine hits and eight runs (seven earned) in 2.1 innings. Coe collected only five hits and committed three errors.

Central raised its record to 26-14.