It’s been an unusually long off-season that Prairie Baseball Academy (PBA) head coach Todd Hubka has taken full advantage of, including by bolstering his staff.
As the PBA gets back to business this week, Hubka’s 60 players will have an impressive pair of pitching coaches to learn from, with the program announcing the additions of Dustin Molleken and Rhett Feser last week.
“It’s been a while since we’ve had a true, full-time pitching coach and I think that’s — with both Dustin and Rhett — going to help us out a lot, and it’s going to help that other coaches can go towards their strengths,” Hubka said.
In Molleken’s case, the return to Lethbridge is nearly two decades in the making.
“I was here 18 years ago as a player, and now I’m here 18 years later as a coach,” said Molleken with a laugh.
The Regina product was with the PBA in 2003, the same year he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates. From there, Molleken kicked off a journeyman professional baseball career, including stops with five major league organizations, an MLB debut with the Detroit Tigers in 2016, and a year in Japan.
Hubka said when his players found out the program would be bringing Molleken in as a coach, they couldn’t contain their excitement.
The head coach says he hopes Molleken’s “old-school” approach will contrast perfectly in tandem with the “new-school” and analytics-based knowledge that Feser will bring.
“There’s a lot of really exciting new technology and new techniques to get into training,” Feser said. “I bought into it a couple years ago, so I’m ready to start teaching these kids.”
Feser has also come full circle in his baseball journey, back to the Prairie Baseball Academy.
He attended PBA from 2015 to 2017, winning a pair of championships under Hubka, while going 5-0 in conference play in his sophomore season to be named the Canadian College Baseball Conference (CCBC) Pitcher of the Year.
“He threw the championship game to win the 2017 championship,” Hubka said of Feser, one of his former starting pitchers.
Feser said the chance to coach alongside Molleken has made the new opportunity in Lethbridge even more exciting.
“He’s obviously played at the highest level, he’s played in the major league, so he’s a great guy for them to be around and I think we’ll work together really nicely,” Feser said.
There’s no official decision on what the CCBC season — or travelling exhibition play — will look like for the PBA yet, but players will have plenty of training and intrasquad play under their belts when games begin.
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