FIle photo by Ari Selvey Madelia’s Tate Becker celebrates after an out during the Class A State Baseball Tournament title game on June 15, 2026, at Target Field in Minneapolis. Becker was unanimously named the 2026 All-Journal Baseball Player of the Year on Thursday.

MADELIA — Every time Tate Becker took to the mound this year, teams would be lucky to even score a single run against the Madelia Blackhawks.

The right-handed pitcher allowed just five earned runs in the entire season, ending the year with a staggering .53 ERA. In 66 innings pitched, Becker delivered 126 strikeouts, nearly two an inning, and had a perfect 9-0 record. Four of those wins came in the Section 2A playoffs, including a no-hitter against Sleepy Eye in the section semifinals and another against Sleepy Eye in the Section 2A championship game to send Madelia to its first state tournament since 1991.

Becker took to the mound twice in the state tournament, pitching 12 2/3 innings and delivering 20 strikeouts and allowing just one earned run across both games. He was the winning pitcher in the Class A State Baseball Championship game to give Madelia its first-ever state title in any sport.

Becker earned All-Conference, All-Section and All-State honors, was the Valley Division Baseball Player of the Year and made the MSHSBCA All-Star game and the Class A All-State Tournament Team. Now, Becker adds one more award as he was unanimously selected as the 2026 All-Journal Baseball Player of the Year, as voted on by The Journal’s sports staff.

“It’s rewarding, honestly,” Becker said. “You put in all this work, and even if you don’t get an award, you still see the work that you put in. But to just be able to get this, I’m really grateful. It’s rewarding, and it feels pretty sweet.”

Becker said that his success is from taking the fight to the batter for every at-bat.

“Constant pressure is what I think of it as,” he said. “Not very often do I fall behind in most counts. Then the batter is in the driver’s seat, able to take big swings, get big hits. I feel like I keep hitters in a lot of defensive counts to keep them guessing to what pitch is coming.

“I feel like I mix my pitches really well and attack the hitter with my velocity and my movement from my curveball. I’m coming at you with all I’ve got, and you need to beat me to score. That’s why I’ve had such a good season. I don’t walk many people, because I don’t fall behind the count very often.”

Part of what allows Becker to be that aggressive is the velocity of his fastball, a pitch that touches the lower 90s at its fastest.

“I’m throwing a lot harder than I have been ever,” Becker said. “Tink Larson [Minnesota State University assistant baseball coach and Hall of Fame baseball player] had a radar gun at the state championship game, and I hit 92 miles an hour. That’s a PR for me by two miles an hour.

“I also feel like I’m being a lot more of a smarter pitcher. The last few years has been, ‘OK, I’m going to throw hard, throw a bunch of fastballs.’ I still throw a majority fastball, but I mix in my curveball a lot more. It keeps hitters off guard. Trying to guess what’s happening next.”

Becker has worked a lot to get that fastball to where it is today, improving his max velocity by five miles per hour since last season.

“One is getting stronger,” he said. “Eating better. But also, shout out to 507 [Baseball Academy]. I did a pitching camp with them this year. I learned some stuff from there, worked on a third pitch, a splitter. It’s kind of hard for me — that and a changeup are harder pitches for me — just working on that a bunch.”

Becker added that continuing to work in the offseason helped him stay warm for spring baseball.

“You can’t go a few months and just expect to hop right back in,” he said. “I learned that from my sophomore to junior year. I still threw well last year, but sophomore year my arm and my action felt better. I didn’t do anything much over junior winter, and then the spring came and I warmed up as I went. But his year, I was working hard and learning from the guys at 507.”

Becker also put in a lot of work on his offense, bouncing back from a down year last season. This year, Becker batted .342 with a .444 OBP. Becker collected 30 RBIs, 34 runs scored and 14 extra base hits in total. Becker improved his batting average nearly 100 points from last year, coming back from a .250 batting average.

“I was so frustrated and disappointed with myself the whole year [junior year],” Becker said. “Playoffs I hit pretty well, which is really the only thing that matters, but the whole year I was just kind of off. I couldn’t really figure it out. Something that I feel like I picked up a lot this year was just the amount of work that I put in with the team. In the winter we had hitting from the day we walked in in the first or second week of August, we hit twice a week until spring.”

Becker also said that he changed his mentality at the plate this year.

“My approach last year was put the ball in play, try not to strike out, which is a pretty awful approach,” he said. “This year, my approach was, runners in scoring position, I’m trying to put something out there, make something happen. I think that helped me out. I’m just more mature, and last year I was in my head a whole bunch, and that dampened my performance. This year, I was grateful even to play, and I thank God I had the opportunity. Taking the mental aspect out of it helped me a lot too.”

For Becker, ending his season and his high school career with a state championship was everything he could have asked for. Becker was able to score the game-ending run against Red Lake County in the state championship to close out his time with Madelia.

“You can’t ask for much more,” he said. “The pinnacle of high school sports. The greatest game that any of us have played in our lives to this point. I personally did not have the best game — I didn’t give up any earned runs, but I walked a ton of people, a lot more than I usually do — but that last tag-up play, it’s awesome … There’s no words to describe it. It’s pure joy. That’s probably the one time we celebrated as hard as we did. Truly just taking a sigh of relief. We won.”

Becker plans on continuing his baseball career at Southwest Minnesota State University next season.

“My goal is to be a starter freshman year as a two-way player,” he said. “Obviously that’s a big goal as a freshman coming in, and not many people can do it. I know that I’m a lot better as a pitcher, but I like playing shortstop and hitting better. Not saying that I don’t like pitching, but I like the other stuff better. I’ve got to put in a lot of work and a lot of hours on that side of the ball as well as pitching. My goal is to be a two-way player. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll work as hard as I can to make it happen.”