Zumbrota-Mazeppa's Hudson Ohm will pitch for the University of Minnesota

ZUMBROTA — On the morning of Aug. 1, the first official day that the University of Minnesota baseball staff could contact Zumbrota-Mazeppa junior Hudson Ohm, they wasted no time.

Ohm's phone rang early that morning. It was the Gophers, expressing their serious interest in the hard-throwing right-hander.

Serious enough that they were already offering him a scholarship.

To say that Ohm was flattered, stunned and overjoyed puts it mildly. He'd always dreamed of playing in the Big Ten Conference, for the home-state team.

"It was pretty cool," Ohm said. "A lot of schools followed (also showing interest) after Minnesota called. But they told me that I was the first call they made. I really have come to love their coaches and love their plan for the future of the program. I've always wanted to be a Gopher and to represent my home state."

Ohm loved it enough that on Sept. 25, he dialed up Minnesota pitching coach Alec Crawford and told him yes, he wants to wear the Gophers' maroon and gold.

For Ohm, his choice ultimately came down to three schools — Minnesota, the University of St. Thomas, where his brother Preston Ohm is a freshman pitcher, and the University of Missouri.

Turns out the lure of the Big Ten and staying close to home, as well as playing with a pack of guys from his summertime club team —Great Lakes (Woodbury) — was too much. The Gophers won out.

He'll join East Ridge's Bennett Skinner, Cretin-Derham Hall's Davis Fleming and Chaska's Parker Killian as club teammates who will also soon be Gophers teammates.

It's all shaping up perfectly for Ohm, one of the state's most sought-after high school players.

"I didn't figure there was any reason to wait on my decision," Ohm said. "It's going to be really fun, staying home and representing my home state. And playing with some guys who I already really know is also really cool. I just knew I wanted to be a Gopher."

He also just knew he wanted to be a baseball player, and has known it for years. The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Ohm, son of Chuck and Sarah Ohm, has had heavy baseball leanings the past four years. He shared those with Preston, who like him was also a basketball player at Zumbrota-Mazeppa.

But there was just something about baseball that captured them both.

Hudson began getting serious about the game heading into his seventh grade year, when he sought out individual baseball training. His teacher was former Rochester Century standout and former minor-league pitcher Mitch Brown.

Brown is still that guy for Ohm.

"Mitch has been extremely helpful," Ohm said. "He's helped me with my mechanics and the mental side of baseball."

The beginning of this month, the hard-throwing Ohm threw his hardest yet, hitting 91.5 miles per hour on his fastball. He mixes that with a curve and a slider, and he's working on a changeup.

That combination of pitches allowed him to have a stifling sophomore season with Zumbrota-Mazeppa, going 9-0 with a 1.1 ERA and 101 strikeouts in 502⁄3 innings.

It's the kind of stuff that lands Big Ten scholarships.

It did. Hudson Ohm is going to be a Gopher.