KENOSHA – It is always best to play your best at the end of the regular season and ride that momentum through the post season.

That is just what is happening with the Kenosha Bradford baseball team after clinching its first Southeast Conference title since 1987 last week.

“As a coach this is how you would like the season to fall,” Bradford coach Matt LaBuda said. “Things have fallen in place for us.

“The kids don’t get the history of winning the first title since ’87, but some of the old timers have come back and talked about how big that was and how happy they are to see the program doing well. It’s not the first year we’ve been successful here (having won the 2008 WIAA Division 1 state title), and it’s still going strong.”

The Red Devils (11-1 Southeast, 19-4 overall) have pulled it together with pitching and offense. They have done so by flying under the radar up until now, making their debut on the Wisconsin Baseball Coaches Association Division 1 poll at No. 6 this week.

“If we’ve had a loss we’ve been able to bounce back,” LaBuda said. “We’ve kept winning and we’ve done it quietly without much written about us and without being in the rankings.”

LaBuda has seen the emergence of five starting pitchers that can compete without much drop off. The staff has a 2.33 ERA, led by senior southpaw Brenden Schulz who has a .85 ERA.

“They can compete against anybody,” LaBuda said of his starters from one through five. “They know they’re going to get the offensive support and the team is behind him.”

Giving up the amount of runs the Red Devils have has made it easy for the offense. Besides Shulz’s microscopic offense, senior lefty Kevin Pawell has a 1.02 ERA, and Ryan Furtney has a 1.43 ERA.

“It’s not just the No. 1 or No. 2 guy and that is what is the most encouraging,” LaBuda said.

Schulz also leads Bradford’s offense which has a .399 batting average as a team and a .493 average of his own. He is the team’s leadoff hitter and has scored 46 runs in 23 games with an on-base percentage near .600.

There are seven different players on the team hitting over .400 making this one potent lineup from top to bottom.

“Usually in high school you have about four good hitters and try to just fill in the rest,” LaBuda said. “With this group I’m confident one through nine and even one through 11 if we need to go that far with our hitters.”

Sophomore Nate Mikolas was a first-team all-conference pick as a freshman last year and he has continued to shine. He is hitting .429, which is tops on the team, with 32 RBIs in 23 games. He has drawn 20 walks to give him an OBP just under .600.

“There are times he has shown he is still a sophomore with the mistakes he makes, but the difference between him as a freshman and now is that he doesn’t let it bother him and adjusts more this year,” said LaBuda, who has received many inquires from “big-time colleges” looking to recruit Mikolas.

Momentum will need to keep building for the Red Devils, who earned a No. 3 seed in the WIAA Division 1 playoffs and will start play June 4, against the winner of No. 6 Lake Geneva Badger vs. No. 11 Racine Park (CHECK OUT THE BRACKETS).