Ethan Minaker earned his first NCAA win, and first Big West Conference “pitcher of the week” honours as his California State Roadrunners blanked the UC Riverside Highlanders over the weekend with a 10 – 0 victory. D1Baseball listed the performance as one of the top 25 starts in the nation last Saturday. The left-handed starter threw 6.0 innings allowing no runs, three hits and one walk, while collecting three strikeouts, and retired the side in order in the first, second and fifth innings.
After Minaker started the season with the Roadrunners as a bullpen relief pitcher, he received conference attention with his first midweek game against the No. 11 nationally ranked USC Trojans, where he had a strong outing pitching 6.1 innings, allowing one earned run, while striking out five batters. From that game onward Minaker moved to the weekend starting rotation starting five games since, with a team best ERA of 3.48 over 44 innings pitched, which is currently ranked sixth lowest in the Big West Conference.
Minaker, who is a St Andrews resident and graduate of the Selkirk Comp, found early success locally before playing abroad. While a member of the North Winnipeg AAA Pirates at 16, they won both the city and provincial championships. At 17 as an underage player, he made the switch to the 22U Manitoba Junior Baseball League invited to play with the St. Boniface Legionnaires, where he was quickly identified as a top pitcher on the team.
In his first eligible year playing in the league, he led St. Boniface to win the provincial championships and went on to win a gold medal as a pickup for the Elmwood Giants in the 2023 22U Men’s national championship where he earned two wins and a player of the game honours. As a double championship winner in the MJBL that season, Minaker also received the Jack Hindy trophy for top pitcher, as well as the left-handed pitcher of the year awards, and received the Winnipeg Goldeyes Field of Dreams Scholarship award. Minaker went on to play down south at the collegiate baseball level in the Kansas Jayhawk Conference where he was presented with multiple “pitcher of the week” honours, and the D1 All-KJCCC West honourable mention honours during his time at Barton College with the Cougars.
Minaker has also played in the very competitive Northwoods league during the summer before transferring to the NCAA.
