He comes from a basketball family, but Zander Wiel of C.R. Kernels chooses baseball

CEDAR RAPIDS — He was born into a serious hoops family, but Zander Wiel knew fairly early in life that was not going to be his future sport.

'I played basketball in high school and stuff,' Wiel said, after his solo home run with two outs in the ninth inning gave the Cedar Rapids Kernels a 5-4 win Monday afternoon over Quad Cities at Veterans Memorial Stadium. 'But I was a 6-3 small forward, and that's not going to play at the college level. I was good at baseball, always better at baseball than I was basketball. So that's how it kind of worked out.'

Wiel's father, Randy, played college basketball at North Carolina, was a Tar Heels assistant under the legendary Dean Smith and spent nine years as a D-I head coach at North Carolina-Asheville and Middle Tennessee. He also coached overseas in the Netherlands and China, where Zander spent some of his teenage years.

Zander, by the way, is a nickname, of sorts. His given first name is Alexander.

'I used to be on the sidelines for all the games my dad was coaching,' Wiel said. 'I grew up in it, so I'm still a huge basketball fan.'

But it's baseball that he's playing professionally. Wiel, 23, was a 12th-round draft pick of the Minnesota Twins last year out of Vanderbilt, where he was a national champion in 2014.

The chiseled first baseman is in the midst of an 11-game hitting streak that has raised his batting average to .274. He hit his first homer of the season in a win Sunday afternoon and followed here by obliterating a 3-2 pitch from losing relief pitcher Andrew Thome over the porch in left field.

The Kernels are 25-18 and in first place in the Midwest League's Western Division. They play three games at Burlington, then return home Friday night to begin a series against Wisconsin.

'When it's a 3-2 count in the ninth inning, you're just trying to get something going,' Wiel said. 'I was just looking for something I could hit hard. Got a pitch to hit, and I put a good swing on it.'

'He's worked pretty hard,' Kernels Manager Jake Mauer said. 'He's a kid that almost works too hard, as much as you hate to say it. He's in the cage a lot, trying to get his timing down. He's got a lot of stuff going on in his swing. A big leg kick, his hands up, which is fine, just as long as you're able to do it all before (you swing). I think earlier in the year, he was doing all the same stuff, but the ball was getting too far in instead of out. We've talked a lot about that, getting the ball out front and driving it.'

Wiel's heroics made a winner again out of reliever Nick Anderson, who is 4-0. Anderson has retired the last 20 hitters he has faced, including six guys in this game.

Outfielder LaMonte Wade homered and walked three times to increase his streak of reaching base via hit or walk to 24 consecutive games.

The Midwest League announced Monday that Kernels pitcher Fernando Romero is its Pitcher of the Week. Romero threw five hitless innings over the weekend in his first start since having Tommy John elbow surgery in 2014.

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