Crete-Monee’s Bren Milburn loves the feeling he gets when he takes off to steal a base.
The senior utility man really gets excited when he’s not sure whether or not he’s going to make it.
“It’s the adrenaline,” Milburn said. “It’s kind of just a fight-or-flight type of thing. It’s an opportunity to put your team in a better spot. The adrenaline really gets going when it looks like it’s going to be close and you know you have to beat the tag or slide around it.
“When it’s close like that, I think that’s the most fun part.”
This spring, however, it was rarely close. And the stolen bases were almost never in doubt for Milburn, a Morton College recruit.
He piled up an Illinois High School Association record 93 for the season and was caught stealing just twice. Crete-Monee coach Brad Meyer remembers one of those two well.
“Against Eisenhower, he tried to slide around the shortstop and he had the base stolen but he slid too far, went past the bag and the kid still had the tag on,” Meyer said.
Aside from that miscue, it was pretty much an automatic thing when Milburn took off. Those 93 steals also led the nation this season, according to statistics on MaxPreps.
“Catcher’s indifference is a thing, but with Bren, he has the base stolen before you can decide if it was catcher’s indifference or not,” Meyer said. “By the time the ball crosses the plate, he’s already standing on the base.
“We knew Bren was going to do whatever he could to get on base. Then he was going to steal second and he was going to steal third.”
Milburn did that so often that he shattered the previous IHSA record for stolen bases in a season. Odin’s Jeff Burton in 1988 and Lane Tech’s Joe Perez in 2001 both finished with 73 steals.
Milburn, who stole 48 bases last year, could never have imagined nearly doubling that number this spring.
“Honestly, the goal was to get to 60 stolen bases, so 93 is crazy,” Milburn said. “But my team gave me a lot of opportunities. I wanted to get on base as much as I could. I took my walks.
“That gave me a lot of chances to steal.”
Milburn is more than just a one-trick pony, though. He hit .439 with 53 runs and 32 RBIs and went 7-2 on the mound with a 1.37 ERA.
He was named both the player of the year and the pitcher of the year in the Southland Conference.
“Before the year, he was going to pitch in relief and his goal was to get seven saves,” Meyer said. “Then I told him I needed him to be our No. 1 starter, and he just went out and got seven wins instead.”
Milburn is part of a big baseball family. His dad, Bryan, is an assistant coach at Crete-Monee and a hitting instructor at All Aspects Baseball and Softball Academy in Schererville, Indiana. Bren’s older brother, Blake, played baseball at Aurora University after starring at Crete-Monee.
“Seeing my older brother play in college and seeing what it takes to get there, I feel like I’ve always taken baseball seriously since a young age,” Milburn said. “I’ve always had that drive to get better.”
He will continue to put that drive to use at Morton. And he has big future goals.
“I want to get to Division I baseball and get drafted eventually,” Milburn said. “I felt like going the juco route was the best for me, the best way to play right away.”
As for high school, Milburn finished with 188 career steals, which puts him third in IHSA history. That record is held by Waltonville’s Tim Dressler, who stole 210 from 1981 to 1984.
Milburn has still not gotten used to seeing his name all over the record books.
“It’s awesome,” he said. “I don’t think it’s really set in yet. I think it will take a couple years.”
