Milford senior Kyle Ruehlman is the Eagles’ ace and a two-time First Team All-ECC selection. (File photo)

Milford senior Kyle Ruehlman is the Eagles’ ace and a two-time First Team All-ECC selection. (File photo)
By Chris Chaney
Sports Editor

Sustained success has become the expectation of Milford baseball in recent years. However, coming into the 2016 season after losing 11 seniors to graduation, head coach Tom Kilgore was tasked with reassembling his squad.

“Coming in, I think we had a number of question marks,” he said. “We returned three position player starters and only one pitcher who had logged a significant amount of innings, so we had a lot of question marks coming in.”

The Eagles were fortunate benefactors of good weather in the lead up to the season, allowing the team to get in four scrimmages.

In a nice rhythm, Milford went from a jumbled collection of unknowns in the preseason to well-oiled machine in a matter of weeks, winning their first six contests over a 10-day span before the Cincinnati spring sky opened up.

“We’re very fortunate to have gotten off to a good start,” Kilgore said. “(The record) is probably better than we anticipated with all those question marks that we had, but we found a way to win some of those games early and answer some of those questions. We’re very excited about our start to this point.”

The start has been made possible by the play of a few guys, most notably Wes Reid, a sophomore middle infielder.

“Our three returning position players have been integral to our success,” Kilgore said. “Brad Hall, Wes Reid and Keith Carter have been really good defensively for us.

“And Wes has just been on fire at the plate; he’s hitting well over .700 at this time. That’s certainly not something you can expect coming out of the preseason. He’s hitting lead off for us, so between Wes setting the table and Brad and a few others driving runs in, it’s been a very success start for us.”

The Eagles pitching staff is headed up by two-time First Team All-Eastern Cincinnati Conference pitcher Kyle Ruehlman.

“Kyle is our No. 1 guy,” the coach said. “He’s been a top-of-the-line pitcher for the last two years and is returning for his third year at the varsity level. We’re going to ride him as long as we can.”

With the exception of Ruehlman, however, Kilgore said that the adverse weather has thrown a wrench into the Eagles’ rotation.

“This weather has been a detriment to the pitching staff because it doesn’t allow for us to keep guys (throwing) on a regular basis,” he said. “The things that we had put in place early has come to a halt, so when we come out of this weather I think we’re going to have to sort some things out with a number of pitchers.

“We’ve got a number of arms that I think can be productive at the varsity level, from seniors down to sophomores. Right now, I don’t know that we have those guys in place. We still have some questions to answer — who the next couple guys in the starting rotation will be as well as who is going to be the first two or three guys out of the bullpen. “

With good weather forecast over the next week, Kilgore said the team will find out quickly how well they can build on that hot start. And to compound the importance of rediscovering that rhythm quickly is that each of Milford’s next eight scheduled games are against league opponents.

“We’ve lost the momentum that we had, which is a shame because we were playing well, believing in ourselves and doing a lot of little things to be successful,” Kilgore said. “The first challenge is going to be trying to regain back that momentum. The second challenge is going to be finding the depth in our pitching staff to play six games in six days. That’s where I think some teams could separate themselves from others because they have a deep pitching staff. I think we have the possibility to have that depth, we’re just going to have to have a couple younger guys step up to help us be successful.”

Having won the ECC each of the first three years it’s been in existence, the Eagles are hoping to be in contention for the fourth consecutive season.

“The ECC last year was fairly senior dominated at a lot of different schools,” Kilgore said. “Loveland returns the most seasoned players in the conference. A number of the other teams were like us and had 10 or 11 seniors last year, so it’s going to be unknown with some of these other teams to see what their players from the JV level are able to accomplish.

“We’re certainly looking forward to the opportunity to play Loveland in the next couple of weeks. We hope that we have a say in who wins this conference and hopefully have a chance to win it for the fourth year in a row.”