New coach, new league, new expectations for Colfax-Mingo baseball

New Colfax-Mingo head baseball coach Greer Milledge doesn’t hide the expectations he has put on his 2016 squad.

Milledge doesn’t expect another 5-24 season. He does expect the Tigerhawks to compete for a conference title in their first season in the South Iowa Cedar League.

“I set high standards,” Milledge said. “I always want to make it to the state tournament. That should always be the goal, and I think the guys want it more than ever now, too.”

Last year’s record came predominately against Class 2A and 3A programs inside the Heart of Iowa Conference.

In games against 1A competition, Colfax-Mingo went 5-4. In one of those losses, the Tigerhawks allowed four runs in the seventh inning of a 6-4 loss to Southeast Warren. In a 5-0 loss to Montezuma, all five runs came in one inning and the 5-0 postseason loss to BGM came on a night when the Tigerhawks committed five errors.

Colfax-Mingo can compete against 1A competition. Milledge is excited see how a full season against those kind of schools will go.

“Last year, we just didn’t have the mindset to win close games or win games against bigger schools,” Milledge said. “We just didn’t have the confidence. This year, the guys have already experienced games in the SICL and you can tell they are much more confident.”

Having most of the roster back from last year’s team will help Milledge in his first season after taking over the program from his brother Seth Milledge, who left to take the same position at Highland Riverside.

Leading the way is sophomore ace Jonathan Jacobs as well as senior Jacob Buehrer, junior Jimmy Camp and sophomore Jarod Nichols.

Jacobs went 3-4 last year as the team’s ace pitcher. He led the team in earned run average at 3.02 and fanned 44 batters in 51 innings.

“I think he’s a lot better than last year,” Greer Milledge said. “He’s grown up a lot, has better control and throws harder.”

Camp returns as the team’s top hitter. He batted a team-best .275 and had an one base percentage of .448 last year as mostly a designated hitter. That role won’t change much this season.

Nichols started all 29 games last year — mostly at third base. He batted .246 and got on base nearly 40 percent of the time.

Buehrer played most of his high school career at catcher, but Milledge plans to transition his most experienced player to second base in 2016. The plan is to take pressure off Buehrer’s knees, which will allow him to hit for more power throughout a long season.

“Jacob has some knee issues, so we wanted to take pressure off those knees and allow him to hit for more power late in the season,” Milledge said.

“It also allows us to transition the position to a younger guy. We are going to have to replace Jacob behind the plate at some point.”

The new catcher, at some point this season, will be freshman Zarek Hill, who started 25 games in the infield last year.

The other returners include sophomore first basemen Misha Seebeck, junior outfielder Adam Teed, senior outfielder Gabe Simpson, sophomore utility player Alex Lewis and sophomore outfielder Reegan Van Dyke.

Teed, Nichols and Hill are expected to log significant innings as pitchers. Seebeck will be the team’s closer.

The issue for Milledge, and for most baseball and softball coaches, early in the season is the lack of availability of his players. Several of the core players are still involved in spring sports, which has limited Milledge in the first few weeks of the season.

“Things are going about as well as they can go,” Milledge said. “We have 21 kids on the team, but we have had only about six to eight at practice every day. We have only had four practices with our full team.”

The Tigerhawks open the season at 6 p.m. Monday at Lynnville-Sully. The home opener is against HLV at 6 p.m. on May 25.