Hansen takes unified Menomonee Falls baseball team to the top

Indian mentor Now Coach of the Year

Menomonee Falls baseball coach Pat Hansen led a junior-dominated Indians squad to a 28-7 record and a WIAA state championship. For this, he earned Now Coach of the Year honors.

Menomonee Falls baseball coach Pat Hansen led a junior-dominated Indians squad to a 28-7 record and a WIAA state championship. For this, he earned Now Coach of the Year honors. Photo By Peter Zuzga

Aug. 11, 2015

Things go better with Coke.

The old advertising tagline is familiar to many in the world and has a special ring of truth for Menomonee Falls baseball coach Pat Hansen.

Because that's how the Now Newspapers 2015 Baseball Coach of the Year got his start in his trade in the early 1990s.

"I was working in college (at UW-La Crosse) at Coca-Cola, and it happened that the GM of the plant was also the head coach at Onalaska (high school)," said Hansen. "We got to talking, and of course we always talked baseball, and he said he could use help (coaching) that spring."

Hansen became a volunteer that following spring, and the rest, as they say, is history.

It's been a long road for Hansen, whose Indians just achieved the Holy Grail of a first WIAA state title late last month with a win over GMC rival Franklin at Kapco Park in Mequon.

He was always a baseball kid. Born in Chicago and raised in the Twin Cities, he remembers going to his grandparents' home in the Chicago area and listening to Cubs games on WGN radio. He also collected baseball cards and played a stout second base in high school.

"It's how it worked where I grew up," he said.

He didn't play baseball in college at La Crosse but kept his love for the game, and through that serendipitous chance conversation with his boss at the Coca-Cola plant, found his way back to it.

There were stops along the way after college, including some years of work as the junior varsity coach at Kenosha St. Joesph's where he learned some vital lessons from legendary retired Lancer football coach Bob Freund, who led his small enrollment team (300-plus) to some success against much larger schools such as Marquette in the old Metro Conference.

"I was always impressed with how he could get people to believe that they could win no matter what the circumstances," Hansen said. "I also watched how he ran practices. He was always very prepared. He kept things running efficiently in a very crisp manner."

'Try to get better'

That attitude carried over when Hansen took over the baseball job at Menomonee Falls in 2003 from the legendary Dave Weber (who's still his pitching coach).

"The kids tease me," he said, "because the week between tryouts and the first game I tend to run the practices a little longer because I'm trying to get so much stuff done. My philosophy is 'always try to get better.' What did we do to get better today?"

Weber added, "It's been a blessing (to have Hansen as coach). I just give my opinion when he asks for it, but he has the final word. He handles all the action, all the organization."

And Hansen said he took a little lesson in handling pressure from former NFL quarterback draft choice Weber.

"I admit, I get a little wound up for certain games," Hansen said, "and a few years ago we had a big game and I was a little nervous and I looked over at Dave and I asked him 'You're not nervous about this at all, are you?' and he said 'No, nervous is when you're lining up under center (in an NFL training camp), and you see (Hall of Fame defensive lineman) Howie Long staring at you from across the line.'"

With that sense of perspective now tucked away in the back of his mind, Hansen and the Indians worked across some bumps in the road this summer to get to the promised land.

Weber's son and team star Ty Weber was coming off a great 2014 season that included All-Suburban and all-state recognition, but just a couple of games into the new season, he came down with a painful oblique strain that would greatly limit his action on the mound and on the field for a month.

The Indians continued to play well, but tough losses to Franklin, Sussex Hamilton and eventual Greater Metro Conference champion Oak Creek all but took them out of the race for league regular-season honors.

But some good may have come out of it, Hansen said.

"In the end, we talked as coaches and said that may have helped us in the long run," he said. "It forced kids to take on larger roles. Lukas Kell (who assumed the top pitching role in Ty Weber's absence), (shortstop/pitcher) Nick Gile, (first baseman) Jerin Frey all did more.

"(Shortstop) Zach (Kornburger) and (outfielder) Matt (Emmer), too. We were fortunate that down the stretch we didn't have to rely on just one person."

The Indians had a dry run for that kind of crisis when early in the season, junior catcher Josh Schwechel had to sit out a few weeks with an injury, and Emmer took over at the backstop position for a time.

Chemistry strong

It was the kind of unity that came to mark the Indians, Hansen said.

"Chemistry is kind of a chicken-and-the-egg sort of thing," he said. 'Do we have good chemistry because we're winning, or do we win because we have good chemistry?"

In the end, Hansen decided it was the latter.

"We had that nonconference doubleheader with Greendale early in the year (a split)," he said. "The play was nondescript, but you could see that the kids liked each other. They played for each other and pulled for everyone even after a mistake. This team really showed me the importance of chemistry."

That ideal was very important because the team was very much junior-dominated with only three seniors by season's end.

"The senior class was very gracious," Hansen said. "They never put up barriers between classes. They were very inviting with everyone and never felt threatened."

Ty Weber came back the week of June 22, and the Indians never looked back, finishing 17-3, including a 10-game winning streak to close out the season and five one-run victories in an eight-game stretch. In this stretch was a three-game sweep in the GMC tournament and five WIAA tournament triumphs.

"They really deserved it," Oak Creek coach Scott Holler said. "This was not his most talented team, but I'm very happy for the whole program. They're always a fun team to play (Falls went 2-1 against the Knights this summer). Our programs are similar. I like how they carry themselves, the way they respect each other and their opponents."

And more signs of respect will follow for Hansen and the Indians. The Menomonee Falls School Board will honor them, as will the Optimist Club, and there may something in the works with the Milwaukee Brewers as well. There will be a banner ceremony at the school a little later this month.

Falls has several juniors, including Ty Weber, coming back in 2016, the Indians will be among the favorites to compete for a repeat state title. Hansen, as usual, is looking forward to the challenge.

"There's no reason why we shouldn't be there with everyone else," he said.

HANSEN COACH OF THE YEAR

Led Falls to first state title

FINAL RECORD: 28-7

CAPTAINS: Kell, Josh Zahn and Ty Weber

SENIORS: Kell, Zahn and Myles Mayer

WBCA ALL-STATE: Ty Weber, first-team utility

GMC ALL-CONFERENCE: Weber, first-team utility; Gile, second-team infield; Dave Weber, assistant coach of the year

TEAM AWARDS: Offensive Player of the Year: Ty Weber; Defensive Player of the Year: Schwechel; Top pitcher: Kell; Team tradition (on and off the field): Emmer.

JUNIOR VARSITY: 23-7

FRESHMEN: 23-5

FINAL NUMBERS

Team batting average: 318; team runs: 190 (5.8 per game); team RBI: 162; team stolen bases: 53; team ERA: 2.87; pitching strikeouts: 177; and pitching walks: 79

INDIVIDUAL LEADERS

Batting average: Ty Weber .417; Kornburger .376, Gile .352, Frey .345; Emmer .319; Mayer .301; RBI: Gile 28, Kell 24, Mayer 22, Emmer 19; runs: Gile 25, Zahn 22, Kornburger 21, Kell 20; hits: Gile 37, Kornburger 35, Ty Weber and Emmer 30; doubles: Gile 10; stolen bases: Boyd Sansone 12; ERA: Ty Weber 1.50, Tyler Becker 1.98; Gile 2.18; strikeouts: Ty Weber 49; and wins: Kell 6, Ryan Piontek 5, Weber 4, Becker and Frey 3

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