Caleb Couse held Newark Catholic to three hits in five innings. (Press Pros Feature Photos By Julie McMaken Wright)
The OHSAA expanded the state high school baseball championships from four divisions to seven and Minster won the first Division VII title Saturday in Canal Park with an 8-0 destruction of Newark Catholic, a fourth state championship for Minster and veteran coach Mike Wiss.
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Akron, OH —For the entire 2025 baseball season, Minster coach Mike Wiss’s mantra has been, “Strike early and strike often.”
And also play the game as clean as a fresh bar of soap and get offensive production from the bottom third of the batting order.
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And that’s the way Minster did it Saturday afternoon in Canal Park while destroying and devastating Newark Catholic, 8-0, to win the OHSAA Division VII state baseball championship.
The Wildcats pounced on Newark Catholic for five runs in the second inning, extracting the early scrap and fight out of the Green Wave.
They then turned it over to pitcher Caleb Couse and his mind-bending curveball. The Minster left-hander held Newark Catholic to no runs, three hits, three walks and seven strikeouts in five innings.
And the pre-plan was for Couse to log five innings and for James Niemeyer to mop up the final two innings. That’s how it worked.
Reese Beair collected three of Minster’s ‘Middle-Oppo’ hits.
For Mike Wiss, it was a fourth state title in six tries and after this one, he said, “Best in Ohio right now. Feels pretty damn good.”
And it was Minster’s lucky 13th straight win on its way to a 152nd state championship in all sports for Midwest Athletic Conference schools.
For Wiss, who also has won state championships as coach of Minster’s girls basketball team, this one contained a little extra tart.
“This is our fourth championship and they are all special,” he said. “I don’t put one ahead of the other. But when you have your son out there, it’s a little bit different.”
Andrew Wiss, playing shortstop, had three of Minster’s 10 hits, including a bunt single that kept the five-run second inning cascading against Newark Catholic.
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Newark Catholic pitcher Max Moore tempted disaster and found it in the second by walking the first two batters.
And Newark Catholic first baseman Owen Pzymierski encountered as much difficulty as folks have spelling and pronouncing his name.
Wiss’s reputation and modus operandi is with two on and no outs is bunt, bunt, bunt. He didn’t.
Coach Mike Wiss running the Minster show to a state title.
He permitted Jace Hemmelgarn to swing away and it didn’t look promising when he swung at the first two and did nothing but disturb the air.
But on 0-and-2, he pulled the ball to the first baseman, poor Pzymierski, and his throw missed the shortstop by the length and width of his last name, the error permitting Ian Homan to score.
Then came the bunt and a beauty. Andrew Wiss pushed one up the third-base line for a hit that loaded the bases with no outs.
With one out, Moore walked Dylan Heitkamp on a full count, forcing home another run. Beair hit a bad-hopper to first baseman Pzymierski that went for a run-scoring single.
That was the end for Newark Catholic starter Moore and Mike Hess arrived to get a strikeout.
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But misfortune hit poor Pzymierski again. James Niemeyer scorched one at the beleaguered first baseman and it bad-hop bounced away from him. Nobody covered first base.
So Niemeyer was credited with a two-run infield single, Minster was up 5-0 and Newark Catholic was all but ensnared inside the rolled-up tarpaulin.
Andrew Wiss tracks down a pop-up and contributed three hits.
Given the 5-0 lead, Minster’s Couse, who pitched a 1-2-3 first with two strikeouts, also tempted the baseball deities.
He gave up a hit and two walks to fill the bases with two outs but caught No. 9 hitter Jaxon Holman looking at strike three.
Newark Catholic tried to run its way back into the game and ran itself out of it. The Green Wave had runners on third and first with one out in the third.
But the man on first, Miller Hutchison tried to steal second and was thrown out by catcher Dylan Heitkamp.
When Heitkamp threw to second, the plan was to have the runner on third, Alex Nagel, break for home. But he remained anchored on the play and stayed there when Malone Hutchison grounded out.
And that was it for Newark Catholic. They could have called for the bus right then.
Throw by Newark Catholic’s ‘Poor’ Pzymierski sails into left field.
Before the game, Wiss told somebody, “Bobby Knight used to say victory favors the team that makes the fewest mistakes.”
Minster made none that anybody noticed and Newark Catholic’s video will be a not-so-funny comedy of mishaps.
Wiss also said, “In Division VII baseball, you’re confident with your one through six hitters. You want and have to get production from seven, eight and nine.”
Minster’s lower order was as productive as an M&M’s bagger and just as sweet.
Seven, eight and nine, in the personage of Jace Hemmelgarn, Andrew Wiss and Connor Schmiesing contributed four hits, scored three runs and drove in two.
Minster put it away in the fifth with a two-run single from No. 9 hitter Schmiesing to make it 7-0 after No. 8 hitter Wiss singled to fill the bases.
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And to add a cherry, strawberry and a sliced banana on top of this sundae, Minster executed again for a run in the sixth. With two on and no outs, Wiss had Ian Homan bunt the runners to third and second and it rewarded them with an eighth run on Ryan Edward’s sacrifice fly.
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Most of the 10 Minster hits were punched the opposite way, another Wiss mantra, “Middle-Oppo,” he constantly says, meaning hit the ball up the middle or the opposite way.
“We knew we weren’t going to see a pitcher throwing in the upper 80’s, somebody who would throw it by us. We had to stay back, drive through the baseball, let the ball travel and hit it oppo,” he said.
Of the 10 hits, three by Wiss and three by Reese Beair, eight were, as Wiss says, “Middle-oppo.”
The game was schedule for a 10 a.m. start, but rain had the Minster players sitting in the dugout watching it rain until a 1:20 start.
2025 Minster Wildcats Division VII State Baseball Champs
Did it bother them. What do the results say?
“We talked about the six inches between our ears and how strong we had to be today,” said Wiss. “The conditions are what we’re going to have to deal with.”
Then his team resembled post-graduates from a school run by Charles Atlas.
So, for the lack of execution, the Newark Catholic Green Wave continued to execute themselves.
They failed this season to win their 10th state championship, but it will be no surprise to see Newark Catholic here next season. Only one senior started and five starters were sophomores.
And they should have learned a lot from a muli-talented Minster team because there was a lot of Wiss-dom to absorb.
James Niemeyer finished the final two innings.
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