Coe hopes to extend special baseball season

CEDAR RAPIDS - They didn't see this coming.

“No. Not at all, actually,” said Coe College baseball coach Steve Cook. “That's nothing against this group. What they've done stands on its own merit.”

What this group of Kohawks has done is win a school-record 29 games and its first Iowa Conference baseball championship. Coe takes a 29-10 record and No. 1 seed into this weekend's IIAC tournament at Veterans Memorial Stadium, which begins today.

“I'll be honest with you,” Cook said. “We were just kind of like ‘Hey, let's get better each week. Let's get better by the end of the season and let's try to make the tournament.' Really, that's how simple we kept it. We didn't talk to these guys at all about the standards of Coe baseball or the expectations for success. We didn't go down that road at all.”

Which has led to going down victory road a lot. The players said they could sense something special when they came home from their early March trip to Florida with a 5-2 record.

“Coming into the year, we were definitely under the radar,” said sophomore pitcher Wade Morris. “We'd lost a lot of key pitching from last year ... So we didn't really think we'd have much to put together this year. But the hitting really came along, and our pitching, our pitching coach James Nelson really did a good job of teaching all the young guys to throw strikes. And our defense really backed us up all year as well.”

Coe went 18-6 in the Iowa Conference, finishing first in the league in batting average and third in earned run average. Morris and senior Kevin Baranowski both went 9-2 on the mound, with Morris' 2.44 ERA leading the club. He was a shortstop last season.

Sophomore outfielder Nick Stein - from Arizona, of all places - was the offense's igniter, hitting .391 with seven home runs, 47 RBIs and 20 stolen bases. Marion grad Kevin Schuver added 34 RBIs.

He's one of just four seniors on the roster, meaning Cook's club should be plenty salty again next season. The former Cedar Rapids Kernels infielder is in his 15th season as the head coach at Coe, leading the Kohawks to a rain-shortened IIAC tourney title in 2006.

Buena Vista, Wartburg, Simpson, Luther and Central also are in this weekend's double-elimination event. The winner qualifies for NCAA Division III regional play, though Coe could get an at-large bid as well.

“It's a good feeling to have that target on our backs,” Stein said. “To be that team to come out and get. But we don't really think about that too much. Just come out and play our baseball, do our thing. Everything will fit into place if we do what we can do.”