Hoping to Turn On the Power Switch : A Marked Man in Regional Play, CLU’s McMillin Wants to Leave Mark in Division III Championships

Darrell McMillin, Cal Lutheran’s leading home run hitter, hopes he sees friendlier pitches this weekend than the ones that stymied him last weekend.

McMillin, a junior outfielder with a school-record 19 home runs, leads the Kingsmen into the NCAA Division III baseball championship at Albion College in Battle Creek, Mich. Cal Lutheran will meet defending national champion Southern Maine today on the opening day of the eight-team, double-elimination tournament.

Cal Lutheran (39-4) is ranked first in Division III. Southern Maine (30-9) won the New England regional to advance to the championships.

Only two teams held the top spot of the American Baseball Coaches’ Assn. Division III poll this season: Southern Maine and Cal Lutheran. Southern Maine was top-ranked at the beginning of the season but fell to 10th by the final poll May 4.

McMillin, a junior transfer from Ventura College, hopes that Southern Maine pitchers will not treat him the way he was handled by UC San Diego last weekend. Although Cal Lutheran defeated the Tritons in four games in a best-of-five regional series at San Diego to advance to the championship, UC San Diego pitchers took pains to handle McMillin with care.

McMillin, who leads Cal Lutheran starters with a .405 batting average, was five for 20 with no home runs and four strikeouts.

“We knew that (McMillin) had a lot of power,” UC San Diego Coach Lyle Yates said. “We knew that one of the keys to containing Cal Lutheran’s offense a little bit was to control him.”

McMillin knew he was a marked man, but there was little he could do about it.

“I knew how they were going to pitch me,” he said. “I was getting out of my game by swinging at their pitches.”

That was Yates’ plan.

“We used whatever we could to keep him off the bases and reduce the amount of long balls that he hit. We tried to keep him off balance a little bit and tried to outguess him,” he said.

Given McMillin’s intensity, it’s a good bet he’ll bounce back. The diligent McMillin faces each at-bat equally, whether he is zero for five, or five for five that day.

“He’s exactly what you want your player to be as a coach,” Cal Lutheran Coach Rich Hill said.

Cal Lutheran has its share of wise guys, but the subdued McMillin is not one of them. The pitching staff ate worms earlier this season to show their desire to qualify for the baseball championship. McMillin is not a pitcher, but if he were, he would have politely declined the worms.

But no one would begrudge McMillin. Being outrageous is not his style.

“He’s just very polite and very professional,” Hill said.

McMillin has always hit consistently but never with as much power. Previously, his best home run season came in 1990 at Ventura College when he hit four.

At Ventura, McMillin was an All-Western State Conference first-team selection as a freshman and a second-team selection as a sophomore. He played at Ventura College and Ventura High along with his twin Dean, who has played sparingly this season as a pitcher at Cal State Long Beach. This year marks the first time since the twins were 5 years old that they have played on different teams.

“I miss (Dean),” McMillin said, “but he’s going to go a different way, and I’m going to go mine.”

McMillin wants to head in the direction of professional baseball. Hill believes his power-hitting outfielder is good enough.

“They are really missing the boat if they don’t give him a shot to play professional baseball,” Hill said.

The low-key McMillin might be easy to miss. It’s a good thing his home runs speak loudly.