NEW ULM — New Ulm Brewers’ manager Al Flor knew when this season started out, it was not going to be a typical year for the Brewers.

“It was going to be a challenging year for us,” Flor said on Wednesday, 24 hours after the Brewers saw their season end in the Tomahawk East League playoffs with a 5-2 loss to Gibbon at Johnson Park.

“We did have some veterans coming back and we knew that we had some younger kids coming in, but they would need some years to develop,” said Flor, who saw his team end with a 12-10 record in the TEL and an 18-14 overall mark. “It was going to be a challenging year.”

Throw into that some season-ending injuries to key players in infielder Judd Davis and pitcher Mitch Kelly — both who had surgery prior to the start of the season — and it was a tough road.

“But we did our best to survive it and be as successful as we could,” Flor said.

The losses of both Davis (shoulder surgery) and Kelly (Tommy John surgery) were two setbacks that in the end were impossible to come back from.

“Both of those were incredible blows to our team,” Flor said. “Losing one of your two best pitchers and your anchor in the infield were two big holes to fill.

“Some of our veterans in Zach More, Landon Rewitzer and Wade French stepped up as best as they could. We are definitely looking forward to next year and getting back these guys who were hurt. We feel like we will have a big turnaround next year. That is our bright spot right now.”

BREWERS WERE INCONSISTENT: When asked if up and down play hurt the Brewers this season, Flor said that the team struggled at times during the year.

“We were very inconsistent and I think that our confidence was down because of the players we lost,” Flor said. “Our main veterans were still there — they stuck it out and wanted to make the younger kids better. Our big thing was to get to the playoffs and see how we banded and worked together.”

The Brewers played a lot of young players this season, especially in the playoffs. In Tuesday night’s game, the Brewers had four starters — pitcher Nick Fischer, catcher Hunter Ranweiler, outfielder J.T. Hoffmann and shortstop Andrew Peters –who a week earlier were playing American Legion baseball.

“We had two (high school) juniors (Peters and Ranweiler) and two graduating seniors (Fischer and Hoffmann) and we lean on those players and in the past few years that has not been the case,” Flor said. “It will take a few more years for those younger players to develop, play college baseball and get back to where we were. We threw these younger players into the fire early. We depended on them and they did the best they possibly could. But because of legion and VFW baseball and vacations we were not able to get them to play together.”

TURNOVER FOR NEXT SEASON NOT A PROBLEM: The Brewers roster should remain the same in 2018.

“I do not see a lot of turnover for next season,” Flor said. “That is good because this year we were tight on numbers because of the young kids playing legion baseball. And next year we will have between three or four players who will be full-time players, so it will be easier to be more consistent.

“Barring any setbacks both Davis and Kelly will both be back next season,” Flor said. “And we have some cornerstone people like Wade French who can anchor our pitching staff along with Mitch Kelly.”

FRENCH, CARIVEAU DRAFTED: Two Brewers pitchers, French and Chris Cariveau, were drafted for the Region 2C tournament by Lamberton and Hanska respectively. Kasey Kuck of Searles was drafted by Springfield, Branden Flock from Leavenworth was drafted by Sleepy Eye, Jordan Guggisberg from Essig was picked by Gibbon and Kyle Pinke of St. James was drafted by Stark.

KNOWLES HITS FIRST HOME RUN: Former New Ulm Cathedral and current University of Minnesota baseball player Gabe Knowles hit his first home run in the Northwoods League for the Duluth Huskies Tuesday night in Duluth’s 10-3 win over Rochester.