In 2014, Colorado Mesa finished second in the NCAA Division II national baseball tournament, losing a 3-2 heartbreaker in 12 innings to Southern Indiana in the title game in Cary, N.C.
Mavericks pitcher Ryan Reno can’t get that scene out of his head.
“I’ll never forget watching USI celebrate after a game I thought we should have won,” Reno, a junior from Lakewood’s Bear Creek High, said this week. “But I’m going to use those feelings to make sure I give everything I have to make sure it doesn’t happen again if we do go back there.”
A year later, the Mavericks are 47-7 under coach Chris Hanks, have won the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference’s regular-season and tournament championships and will play host to the six-team South Central regional in Grand Junction. The top-seeded Mavericks’ tournament opener at Suplizio Field is against No. 6 St. Mary’s on Thursday at 7 p.m. The eight regional winners advance to the Division II World Series, again in Cary.
“We’ve definitely had that sour taste in our mouths all year, wanting to get back to where we were and get one extra run and one extra hit and win a national championship,” said Mavericks junior left-hander Tyler Ehlers, from Aurora’s Smoky Hill High. “This year, we’ve been putting in a lot of extra work to get back there and have another opportunity.”
Ehlers is 8-0 with a 2.56 ERA for the Mavericks after moving from the bullpen to the starting rotation at midseason. Reno was the RMAC’s pitcher of the year, and he is 11-2 with four complete games in 14 starts and a 3.03 ERA.
Both pitchers from the Denver area have had to persevere — Ehlers because of a double whammy of anterior cruciate ligament and Tommy John surgeries, Reno because he weighed only 135 pounds coming out of high school.
After his freshman season at Mesa in 2011, Ehlers was hiking near Grand Junction. “I slipped and fell off a cliff,” he said. “It was about a 15- to 20-foot drop. I landed on my feet, but that’s how I tore my ACL.”
He underwent surgery and took what eventually became a medical redshirt year in 2012. “I rehabbed my knee all through that spring and started my throwing program,” Ehlers said. “It was one of my first live outings back, and I had some soreness. We got it checked out, and we found out my elbow was torn as well.”
So next he underwent elbow surgery and had to sit out 2013 too.
He threw only 18 innings in 2014 before becoming one of the Mavericks’ aces this spring.
“That was a long two years of sitting back and watching our team go through ups and downs, where I wish I could have been part of that,” Ehlers said. “But in the long run it’s been a blessing in disguise for me because I’ve been a part of something special the last two years. It’s made me mature a little more and respect the game.”
As he was finishing up at Bear Creek, Reno heard others say he was too small to play in college.
“I kind of used that as motivation, and I was going to find somewhere to play,” Reno said.
A summer coach lined him up a chance to throw for the Northeastern Junior College staff, and he ended up in the Sterling’s JC’s program. Because he hoped to become a firefighter, the school’s associate degree program in Fire Science/Fire-fighting “made it a win-win for me,” Reno said. He’s scheduled to receive his diploma, signifying a a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration/Public Safety, at Saturday’s commencement.
On the field, he earned 21 wins in two seasons for Northeastern, then moved on to Mesa, where he has 58 strikeouts and allowed only seven walks in 86 innings this season.
And that 135-pound high school kid? Reno now weighs in at 175.
“I’ve put on a little bit of muscle,” Reno said, then added dryly, “It makes me a little more intimidating on the mound, I guess.”
Two other key members of the Mavericks’ staff are from Colorado. Senior closer Joey Capistran (6-0, 0.85 ERA) is from Centennial and Regis Jesuit High. Junior right-hander Matt Allen (7-1, 3.98) is from the powerhouse Rocky Mountain High program in Fort Collins.
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or
Mavericks file
Colorado Mesa University of Grand Junction was known as Mesa State College from 1988-2011.
Chris Hanks is in his 17th season as the Mavericks’ head baseball coach.
The Mavericks have won the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference title four years in a row and nine times in the past 11 years.
Mesa’s top hitters:
OF Alex Fife, Jr., Draper, Utah, .432, seven HR, 37 RBIs
C Kyle Serrano, So., Grand Junction, .393, six HR, 54 RBIs
OF Bligh Madris, Fr., Las Vegas, .380, four HR, 52 RBIs
C Austin Wallingford, Sr., Pueblo, .371, 11 HR, 48 RBIs
Note: Wallingford was the RMAC’s player of the year.
Schedule
Thursday’s games in the NCAA Division II South Central Regional at Suplizio Field in Grand Junction:
Noon: No. 3 Angelo State vs. No. 4 CSU-Pueblo
3:30 p.m.: No. 2 St. Edward’s vs. No. 5 West Texas A&M
7 p.m.: No. 1 Colorado Mesa vs. No. 6 St. Mary’s
