MANKATO — New Ulm’s Ethan Stade’s freshman college baseball career at Minnesota State University, Mankato really began shortly after his season with New Ulm Legion Gold and the New Ulm Brewers ended late last summer.

“I went right into fall baseball and that was a huge adjustment,” Stade said. “In fall ball, I was pitching against some of the best players so I had to learn very quick and get better.

“From the end of summer ball it has been non-stop go-go-go baseball and that for me or any high school player is a big change,” Stade said. “High school players are used to only playing in the spring where in college baseball, we are going all year round.”

Stade, who was the All-Journal Baseball Player of the Year last year, said that his schedule coming in was downloaded with weight lifting, then practices every day.

“They gave us a month off for winter break but then you come back from that break and it is go-go-go again.”

Stade, a left-handed pitcher who went 8-1 for New Ulm High School last year, will redshirt this year at Mankato. He said that the adjustment from high school to college baseball is a 50-50 between mental and physical.

“The mental part is that you need to get by the part of being a freshman on the team so you need to build your self-esteem up. The coaches know that you will be there for a long time. Physicality-wise, I am sure that many kids in high school do not lift weights as much as they should. But you come into the freshman year of college baseball and you are smaller than almost every player there. You have to adjust to that.

“In high school I barely ever lifted weights and the coaches tried to get us to lift. But here in college you do not mess around — I am lifting weights four days a week with the freshmen for an hour per session. We are doing power lifts and agility lifts. That was big adjustment.”

Early on, Stade feels that he has done a fairly decent job in his initial season of college baseball.

“I know in the fall in the games that I pitched the coaches said that they were pretty impressed with how I performed,” he said. “Over this past winter and early spring I probably struggled a little bit but I feel that I have found it now. In college every one of the batters can hit the ball and you need the control. If you do not have the right mindset you are not going to have the control that you need. That is something that I found a bit when I was struggling.”

Stade said that the coaches helped him in his pitching mechanics with some minor adustments.

“They did some tweaking in my form so that I could get more velocity on my fastball. They made my movements more fluid — I was tending to collapse on my landing leg rather that taking it back and taking it straight up. And I was tending to separate my hips right away and that was causing a lot of stress in my shoulder because I had to produce a lot of my whip from my shoulder rather than using my hips.”

And Stade’s hard work is paying off.

“Matt Magers, who is the head coach and also the pitching coach at Mankato, said that when we talk he says that he sees a lot of potential in me,” Stade said. “There was an opportunty there early where I could have started as a true freshman, but I got redshirted. But I am getting established. And when Matt and I talk, whatever he says I am there and 100% attentive to what he is saying. I am trying to get better each day.”