BY STEVE KRAH
Even before Mike Mokma became part of the baseball coaching staff at Huntington (Ind.) University, he was getting to know Foresters players.
Mokma, a standout right-handed pitcher at Holland (Mich.) Christian High School (2013-16) and Michigan State University (2017-19) who competed in the Los Angeles Dodgers (2021) and Seattle Mariners systems (2022) and served as head coach at South Christian High School in Grand Rapids, Mich. (spring of 2023), was the pitching coach for the Jamie Sailors-managed Lafayette (Ind.) Aviators (summer of 2023).
Prospect League member Lafayette featured Huntington pitchers Graham Kollen and Tyler Papenbrock and catcher Sebastian Kuhns and it was with the Aviators that Mokma met HU head coach Thad Frame.
Hired by Huntington in August, Mokma reunited with the three Foresters who were part of a team that went 37-16 overall and 27-9 in NAIA Crossroads League when he arrived on campus in the fall as Frame’s pitching coach.
The emphasis for Mokma, 25, has been development.
“It’s how we can get our guys to achieve the goals they want to achieve as well as the goals we want to achieve (as a team),” says Mokma. “It’s just being there all the time for them.
“What’s our plan on the mound every time we go out? What’s that look like opponent to opponent? What makes our guys good?”
The 2023 campaign ended with a 6-5 loss to Indiana Wesleyan University in the championship game of the CL tournament at HU’s Forest Glen Park. Two conference teams — IWU and Taylor University — moved on to NAIA Opening Round play then wound up at the NAIA World Series in Lewiston, Idaho. Taylor is No. 9 and Indiana Wesleyan No. 14 in the 2023-24 Top 25 preseason rankings.
“Our expectations are to get the NAIA World Series,” says Mokma. “You look inside of that and it’s what we did last year and what we’re going to do. Our emphasis this year are the little things. What little things did not allow us to (make the 2023 NAIA tournament)? Everyone coming back knows the feeling of not being able to get there.
“You see how close we got last year. You clean up a few of the little things, there’s your opportunity.”
Mokma splits recruiting duties with Huntington assistant Jamar Weaver.
“For me, it’s finding guys that I feel fit out pitching staff with make-up, repertoire and how they compete,” says Mokma. “We’re looking for the best players that we feel fit us.”
The current 2024 online roster includes 24 players with Indiana hometowns plus three from Ohio and one each from Kentucky, New York, Canada, Curacao and the Dominican Republic.
Cost is the same for all players — in-state or out-of-state. Athletic scholarship money is based on a Crossroads League spending limit.
“Almost every kid coming in will get some kind of academic scholarship,” says Mokma.
Frame plus assistants Weaver and Andy Vaught and graduate assistant Langston Ginder are all HU graduates. Ginder played for the 2023 Foresters.
At the NCAA D-I level, there are 11.7 available scholarships divided among 27 players on a 35-man roster. Mokma says he does not recall that anyone at Michigan State was on a “full-ride” is his three seasons in East Lansing.
Mokma grew up in Holland and played summer travel ball for Elite Baseball of Grand Rapids and occasionally was picked up for tournaments by the Kalamazoo Maroons. Jim Caserta was the Holland Christian head coach.
Scott and Jennifer Mokma had two sons on the field when HCHS (also known as the Maroons) won a Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 2 state championship in 2016. Mike Mokma was pitching and little brother Chris Mokma, a freshman, was at first baseman.
In Mike’s junior and senior years of high school, he earned basketball letters with Jason Mejeur as head coach.
At Michigan State, the 6-foot-7, 235-pound Mokma made 34 mound appearances (18 starts) and went 4-7 with a 3.71 earned run average, 85 strikeouts and 37 walks in 111 2/3 innings.
As a Spartan, Mokma discovered his diamond identity.
“I learned just who I was as a pitcher,” says Mokma. “I got to college and I could throw hard and I could throw strikes. But besides that it was how I could get guys out and how I could go deep into games.
“When you go against big-time hitters you get intimidated pretty quick, especially being a young freshman. I had to learn quickly that who I was had nothing to do with who they were and my best was going to beat their best. It wasn’t easy, but once I learned that the confidence went up from there.”
Jake Boss Jr., was — and still is — head coach at Michigan State. Recruited by Mark Van Ameyde, Mokma had two pitching coaches at MSU — Skyler Meade (now head coach at Troy, Ala., University) in 2017 and Van Ameyde (who head coach at Eastern Michigan University then came back for his second stint as a Spartans assistant) in 2018 and 2019.
Mokma pitched in 53 professional games (all in relief) and went 7-5 with two saves, a 3.32 ERA, 78 strikeouts and 25 walks in 81 1/3 innings. He was in the Dodgers organization for three years but only go to play for one. Injured in March 2019, he spent the rest of the year rehabbing though was signed by LA as an undrafted free agent. The COVID-19 pandemic took away the 2020 minor league season.
He finally pitched in a game again in 2021 for the High Class-A Great Lakes Loons (Midland, Mich.). A free agent at season’s end, Mokma was inked by the Seattle Mariners organization and hurled for the High Class-A Everett (Wash.) AquaSox in 2022.
“I learned the mental game of baseball is a very funny thing,” says Mokma of his pro experience. “I think it’s overlooked from a pitching standpoint. I learned to control what you can control not let your highs get too high or your lows get too low.”
Mokma decided to make 2022 has last season as a player. He earned his degree from MSU in Interdisciplinary Studies in Social Science and began his coaching career in 2023, leading the program at South Christian.
“I always wanted to get into coaching,” says Mokma. “I always wanted to give back and do the same that every coach I’ve had has helped me with, getting them where they want to be.”
Mentors include Caserta, who also led West Ottawa High School in Holland to an MHSAA Division I state crown in 2003, and David Kool, Michigan’s Mr. Basketball in 2006 at South Christian and Western Michigan University’s all-time leading scorer with 2,122 points and a former Holland Christian head boys basketball coach and now the South Christian athletic director.
“Both of them have told me some of the things I’m going to run into and here’s a framework for a lot of things,” says Mokma. “With (Caserta), we were going get our work in, do the best we can and we’re going to get out.”
Caserta is now quarterbacks coach for Holland-based Hope College football.
Chris Mokma, who was a back-up catcher and first baseman on the varsity as a freshman and grew to be a 6-foot-4 right-handed pitcher with multiple perfect games, committed to Michigan State but was selected in the 12th round of the 2019 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft by the Miami Marlins and went pro. He has logged 80 minor league games 2019, 2021-23. He was with the High Class-A Midwest League’s Beloit (Wis.) Sky Carp in parts of 2022 and 2023.
“He’s always been able to control the fastball a little bit better than I have,” says Mike of Chris. “He’s got a really good change-up. I never had a change-up. I was always a fastball/slider guy. That’s what I relied on.”
In a pairing of former NCAA Division I athletes, Mike and Miranda (O’Donald) Mokma were married October 2020 in Emmaus, Pa. She is from that Lehigh Valley town and played softball for three years while majoring in Sport Management at the University of Delaware. The couple met in the summer of 2018 when Mike was playing in the Cape Cod League with the Hyannis Harbor Hawks and Miranda was doing an internship.
Huntington is scheduled to open the 2024 baseball season Feb. 9 against MidAmerican Nazarene in Olathe, Kan.
www.IndianaRBI.com 