Panthers complete ‘Redemption Tour’ with late-season success

By Reagan Hoverman

In Ellsworth’s previous three seasons, the Panthers had won a combined six games and were reeling as a program. In 2022 alone, they won five games, played competitive baseball throughout the final month of the season and started building the foundation for what they hope will be a great baseball program in the coming years.

Perhaps one of the biggest changes to the program was the addition of first year head coach Brandon Voelker, who hand picked his coaching staff and is trying to build the program the right way. He spoke about his coaching staff and working with the kids this season.

“As a coaching staff, we learned a lot,” Voelker said. “My assistant is handling the pitching duties and our other assistant Kasey Bass is fresh out of college. We learned a lot about ourselves and how we need to coach a little bit differently too.”

While this is Voelker’s first season as a head coach, he has been working on baseball coach ing staffs for nearly a decade. He said that this group of Ellsworth boys is one of the best – if not the best – groups of kids that he has ever had and that they are building the program the right way.

“The kids were great from start to finish,” Voelker said. “I was talking to our AD the other day and I was telling her, ‘In all my years of coaching, and this is year eight, I’ve never not had a player issue – and I didn’t have a player issue this year.’” Voelker stated that this is a group of seniors that quite frankly, hasn’t won a lot of games in their time playing for Ellsworth. However, they haven’t given up, they wanted to run it back one more time in 2022.

In the first eight games of conference play this season, Ellsworth was 1 7 and was once again struggling to win games. However, Voelker talked to his team when it was time to begin the second slate of conference games. He told his guys it was going to be a “Redemption Tour” and that they were going to compete against those strong Middle Border programs.

“We went 1-7 to start the year in the conference and we finished the back half of the year 4-4,” Voelker said. “We lost some big pieces from last year that we were trying to replace. Once we got guys in the right spots, that changed our season a lot.”

Senior third baseman Jack Voelker, who had played catcher in previous years, made his re turn to catcher midway through the 2022 season, and according to Brandon Voelker, that changed everything.

“Jack (Voelker) helped behind the plate and that was a huge thing for us,” Brandon Voelker said. “Early in the year guys were just running all over us. When we moved our three year catcher back to catcher, it completely changed.”

Brandon Voelker was objective in speaking about expectations before the season. He stated that he knew it was going to be difficult to win a conference championship based on the teams in the Middle Border this season.

“Everybody knew what we were looking at to start the year as far as who is in the conference,” Brandon Voelker said. “For me, it was how we were going to grow from beginning to end. I said from the beginning that we weren’t going to build ourselves to win a conference title. I don’t care about the conference title. I want to win a regional title.”

There was unquestionably growth from the beginning of the season to the end of the year. The team started slow, was making mistakes and was getting bases stolen at will. That all changed when the coaching staff found the right places for the players and the team began to tighten up defensively.

It was right around the time that the “Redemption Tour” began. The first game of that tour was a 4 1 win over Prescott on May 3. Sen ior pitcher Urban Broadway pitched that game and was lights out on the mound.

“When we flipped the calendar I said this is a Redemption Tour,” Brandon Voelker said. “I told them, you went 1 7 and now it’s time to put our foot to the floor and let’s go.”

Ellsworth finished the conference slate 4 4. However, that win loss record could have been even better if coach Voelker would have thrown Broadway, the Panthers’ ace pitcher. In those two games, he threw JV pitchers to prevent potential playoff matchups from seeing their best starter’s pitches immediately before the postseason began.

“Two of those last games we threw JV kids,” Brandon Voelker said. “We knew we would see those teams in the playoffs. We didn’t want to show them anything. Yes, it’s a loss, but there is an asterisk there in my head. The game before playoffs, I don’t want to show anything if we might see them in a week.”

Ellsworth’s season came to an end in the Division 2 first round playoff game on the road against Saint Croix Central. The aforementioned ace Urban Broadway pitched that game and gave his team a great opportunity to win. Brandon Voelker spoke about that 3 2 walk off loss.

The Panthers went to the bottom of the seventh inning with a 2 1 lead and with Broadway quickly approaching the maximum pitch count. Saint Croix Central began the inning with a walk and an infield dribbler that reached for a hit. Broadway retired the next two batters before being pulled due to pitch count. Coach Voelker recalled the closing series of events.

“The nine hitter came up and slapped a double down the line to score two in the bottom of the seventh to walk us off,” Voelker said. “I gotta give credit to them. They went and beat Baldwin the next week. At the coaches’ meeting, Wes (Baldwin’s coach) said that nobody wanted to play either of us (Ellsworth or SCC) because of how we were playing at the end of the year.”

Four Panthers receive All Conference recognition Senior catcher/utility player Jack Voelker was voted First Team All Conference. Notable statistics include 27 stolen bases in 16 games, batting .340 and holding down the leadoff spot for Ellsworth the entire year. His consistency both defensively and at the top of the lineup made him a no doubt selection for the coaches.

The aforementioned Broadway received the

See PANTHER BASEBALL, Page B-4

Ellsworth senior Tanner Pechacek takes a cut during the Panthers’ home game against Prescott earlier this season. Pechacek earned AllConference Honorable Mention accolades, joining teammates Broadway, senior Jack Voelker and sophomore Carter Pearce. Photo by Reagan Hoverman