Over the weekend, Valley pitcher Ryan Stedman went unselected in this year’s Major League Baseball amateur draft.
On Monday night, the senior righthander showed why he’s still considered the state’s top prospect by Perfect Game USA. Stedman tossed a three-hitter and racked up 15 strikeouts to lead the Tigers to a 5-0 victory over visiting Ankeny Centennial in a Class 4A substate semifinal.
“There’s a reason he was graded out at 212 (in the nation) or whatever in the draft,” Centennial coach Mark Hey said of Stedman. “My eye-dar said he was throwing probably 95 to 97 (mph) tonight, and he had a good curveball with it. I was proud of our guys’ approach and proud of how they went after him, but sometimes you just have to tip your hat. He just threw an outstanding game.”
Stedman (7-1) lowered his ERA to 0.71 with his masterpiece. He retired 12 straight batters during one stretch–nine of them by strikeout.
The 6-foot-2, 175-pounder is headed to Iowa in the fall, which explains why he was passed over in the MLB draft.
“It’s all about whether the player is signable,” Hey said. “Stedman was graded as a seventh- or eighth-round draft pick, but he probably told all the teams that he was just happy going to Iowa so that’s why he wasn’t drafted. It had absolutely nothing to do with his talent as he showed tonight.”
Valley (22-15) avenged a 10-1 loss to Centennial on June 11. The Tigers advanced to Wednesday’s substate final at 10th-ranked Cedar Falls (23-13).
The Jaguars, meanwhile, finished the season at 20-16.
“When you have kids in your program for four years, you get to know them so well. That’s what is really hard about the end of the season,” Hey said. “You realize those seniors aren’t going to be back, and so many of them were the heartbeat of this team. They’re definitely going to be missed, and they’re all great men with bright futures ahead of them.”
Hey elected to give the ball to sophomore Brekken Miller in the matchup of teams that tied for fourth place in the CIML Conference. He had turned in a dominant performance on the mound in Centennial’s earlier win at Valley.
Miller (3-3) pitched well again on Monday, but was overshadowed in the end by Stedman’s brilliance. He went the distance in the loss, allowing five runs on seven hits while walking two and recording 10 strikeouts.
“I think they only had a couple hard-hit balls all night,” Hey said. “I thought Brekken threw an outstanding game, and I’m really looking forward to his development over the next couple of years. He’s a great pitcher, and he located his ball well and had all of his pitches working. I was proud of him.”
The Jaguars had a chance to take an early lead when Will Morris hit a two-out double in the first inning. Alex Cory followed with an infield single, but Morris tried to score on the play and was gunned down by Valley first baseman Max Anderson.
“I thought Will made the right decision,” Hey said. “There were two outs, so we would have had to get another hit off of Stedman to score that run. I think in games where you know it’s not going to be a high-scoring affair sometimes you have to gamble a little bit. He was aggressive, and I always applaud aggression. So I supported his decision.
“When it doesn’t work, you can second-guess things. But I thought Will had the right mindset to make a play. Unfortunately, (Anderson) made a good read on the play and threw him out,” he added.
Valley then took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the inning. Trent Grevengoed was hit by Miller’s first pitch of the game, moved to second on a wild pitch, advanced to third on Stedman’s fly ball, and came home on another wild pitch.
In the fourth, Stedman hit a leadoff double for the Tigers. Courtesy runner Braydon Hein then advanced to third on a one-out single by Alec McClinton, who went 3-for-3 on the night.
However, Miller then blew a fastball past Aidan Plum for the second out of the inning. He then fanned Anderson to end the threat.
Miller used his off-speed pitches to keep the Valley hitters off-balance. He finished the season with 56 strikeouts in just 37 innings of work.
“He’s got both a curve and a slider so he gets two different kinds of rotation out of those,” Hey said. “You could tell because he really had batters fooled on some of those swings.”
The Tigers finally broke the game open with a four-run fifth inning. Stedman hit a sacrifice fly to knock in the first run, Grevengoed scored for the second time on a wild pitch to make it 3-0, and McClinton capped the outburst with a bloop double to left to drive in a pair of runs.
Centennial got a leadoff single by Eli Starr in the sixth inning. He advanced to second on a grounder by Nolan Powell, but Stedman then whiffed the next five batters to close out the game.
