By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

Tanner Holland, who played for the Burlington Bees last season, announced on social media on Thursday that he was committing to play baseball at Rice.

Holland batted .255 with a .729 OPS in 38 games with the Bees. He had three home runs and 19 runs batted in, and had 11 stolen bases in 12 attempts.

Rice is coached by Jose Cruz Jr., who played 12 seasons in Major League Baseball.

Holland, who plays at Central Arizona College, joins Kooper Schulte and Caleb Wulf as NCAA Division I signees/commitments off last season’s team. Schulte and Wulf signed with Iowa during the fall signing period. Mason Schwalbach will play for Kansas State in the upcoming season.

Photo: Tanner Holland watches a home run during a game last season with the Burlington Bees. (Steve Cirinna/Burlington Bees)

By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

Burlington Bees second baseman Caleb Wulf was named to the Prospect League’s Western Conference all-star team on Thursday.

Wulf was the only Bee named to the 16-player team.

Wulf, who plays at Southeastern Community College, hit .367 in 36 games. Wulf had 51 hits and scored 22 runs. He drove in 19 runs, finishing with a .404 on-base percentage and a .396 slugging percentage.

The Cape Catfish led the team with five selections — shortstop Justin Carinci, outfielders Chris Hall and Brody Christian, and starting pitchers Jorge Romero and Noah Gadberry.

The Western Conference team included Illinois Valley reliever Sebastian Gonzalez, who was named the league’s pitcher of the year and pro prospect of the year.

Photo: Bees second baseman Caleb Wulf was named a Western Conference All-Star on Thursday. (Steve Cirinna/Burlington Bees)

By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

I had a college baseball coach tell me that he always recommended to his best players that they play a season in a summer league.

The chance to play, he said, was invaluable, even in leagues where the competition wasn’t so good. More at-bats and more innings makes for a better player.

But there was a bigger reason to play, he told me. It’s a chance to get a simulation of what it will be like if a player becomes a professional.

It’s long bus rides, it’s building a bond in a clubhouse with a team of players you’ve never met before. It’s playing in quirky ballparks, being embraced by a community, learning to manage your time in a schedule that’s all about baseball.

It’s about memories.

I thought about that this year in watching the Burlington Bees in the Prospect League.

The Bees played 57 games this season, each one having its own story. And so many of the games had stories inside the story.

The Bees endured rain, heat, nights in the smoky haze that covered the Midwest. They pulled tarp, their bus broke down somewhere on an Ohio highway during a seven-games-in-six-days-in-four-states odyssey.

What was fascinating was the clubhouse dynamic never changed throughout the season even when the roster did. The common theme of the newcomers was, “There’s a great group of guys here.”

It was something pitching coach Jack Gray predicted at the Bees’ winter banquet in February.

A good chunk of the roster had already been signed, the last couple of months before the season would be about filling the final spots.

Gray, though, said the signed players already had a group text message going. “I don’t know how good we’re going to be, but these guys really like each other,” Gray said.

It showed during the season.

Go back to the loud cheer from the dugout on Connor Laeng’s single in the second inning of the June 25 game against O’Fallon. It was Laeng’s first hit of the season, on his 36th at-bat.

A few weeks later, Laeng went 3-for-5 in a win at Normal, capping a three-game run of six hits in 11 at-bats.

There was the behind-the-scenes recruitment of outfielder Corey Boyette by pitchers Drew Martin and Jake Jakubowski when the Bees had some roster holes because of injuries. Boyette, Martin and Jakubowski were teammates at Heartland Community College, and the two pitchers convinced Boyette to come to Burlington.

All Boyette did was hit .286 and post a .950 OPS.

It was that kind of chemistry that kept the Bees in the playoff chase until the final week, and kept them in most games.

There were plenty of standout performances. Mason Schwalbach hit .335 and had a league-high 21 doubles. Keanu Spenser hit .304 with 14 doubles and 10 home runs. Caleb Wulf hit .367 in 36 games. Kooper Schulte was batting .373 before a broken hand ended his season.

It was a season in which the Bees had their first player in their three seasons in the Prospect League selected in the Major League Baseball draft, when Spencer Nivens, who played with the team last season, was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the fifth round.

Three Bees — Schwalbach (Kansas State), Lincoln Riley (Arkansas) and Coy Sarsfield (Iowa) — will be on the rosters of Power-5 conference teams in the upcoming college baseball season.

The game of the year was the 10-9 win over Alton, when the Bees rallied from an 8-0 deficit to win in 10 innings on July 28.

It was the hottest night of the season — a heat index of 108 degrees at game-time — and in the moments after the win the smothering humidity of the night was mixed with the fog of the comeback, a feeling of that-was-cool-but-what-the-hell-just-happened.

Outside the Bees’ clubhouse, relief pitcher Preston Kaufman was on the phone with his mom, telling her about the game, when a man walked by and said to Kaufman, “Hell of a game.”

Kaufman stopped his conversation, and shook the man’s hand.

“Thanks for coming,” he said.

Kaufman was one of those stories-within-the-story. He had allowed just one run in four innings of relief in the game, keeping the River Dragons in check to help set up the rally.

I interviewed Kaufman when he got off the phone, and when we were done talking I said, “Hell of a game.”

Kaufman just smiled.

“I won’t forget it,” he said. “Ever.”

Photo: Caleb Wulf (middle) is mobbed by teammates after his game-winning hit against Quincy on July 17. (Steve Cirinna/Burlington Bees)

By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

One loss was going to sting.

Two turned out to be crushing.

The Burlington Bees’ hopes at making the Prospect League playoffs suffered plenty of damage in the doubleheader loss to the Thrillville Thrillbillies on Monday at Community Field.

The two defeats — 17-6 in the first game, 8-5 in the second game — put the Bees (23-30 overall, 13-13 second half) 3 ½ games behind the Quincy Gems for the Great River Division’s second-half playoff spot.

Burlington has four games remaining — Wednesday at Clinton, Thursday and Friday at home against Clinton, and Saturday at home against Quincy — with almost no margin for error at this point.

What was frustrating for Bees manager Owen Oreskovich was a play in the second game that switched the momentum and ultimately led to Oreskovich’s ejection.

The Thrillbillies had loaded the bases with no one out in the second inning. Bees starting pitcher Colton Clarahan struck out Cameron Hill for the first out, then got Jaden Correa to hit a comebacker that looked like it was going to be a 1-2-3 double play to end the inning.

Clarahan got the force out at home plate, but Chase Honeycutt’s throw to first base was wide, allowing Charlie Corum to score.

Oreskovich thought Correa was out of the baseline and interfered with the play, and after a short argument was ejected by plate umpire Matthew De Sutter.

“He really didn’t have an explanation, which was kind of why I was even more upset, which is why I went out there,” Oreskovich said. “Bases loaded, no outs. Clarahan gets the strikeout, and then it’s as easy as a double play as it gets. I didn’t think it was a very tough call.”

Hayden Ralls followed with a two-run single and the Thrillbillies led 3-0.

That left the Bees chasing the rest of the game. They got single runs in the third and fourth innings to get within 3-2, then Thrillville scored two runs in the fifth and two in the sixth to take command.

What added to the frustration of the game was the Bees could have gotten more runs in the third inning. They had the bases loaded with no one out after getting their first run, and couldn’t add anything.

“I felt like that inning where we left the bases loaded really took the wind out of us,” assistant coach Nate Robertson said. “We had the bases loaded, couldn’t do anything with it. It felt like every time we were starting to get momentum, the breath just got taken out of us.”

The Bees got two runs in the seventh on Keanu Spenser’s second home run of the night — he had a three-run homer in the first game — for the final margin.

Spenser now has 10 home runs off the season, tied for second most in the league and one behind leader Lucas Loos of Quincy.

The second inning was costly for Bees in the opener. Thrillville got six runs in the inning on just two hits, taking advantage of five walks from starting pitcher Jared Townsend to take a 7-1 lead.

Four Bees pitchers combined to walk 10 Thrillbillies.

“Too many walks in the whole game, and it really bit us hard,” Oreskovich said. “It’s hard to come back when you get behind that much early.”

Photo: Keanu Spenser heads home after hitting his second home run of the night. (Steve Cirinna/Burlington Bees)

By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

Lincoln Riley just wanted a place to work before he sets off on his biggest college baseball journey.

His former manager with the Burlington Bees had a better idea.

So Riley, who played for the Bees in their first two seasons in the Prospect League, is back for the last couple of weeks.

“It’s good to be back, get some reps in, some (at bats), see the ball off the bat again,” said Riley, an outfielder from Marion, Iowa, who will play his final year of NCAA Division I eligibility this season at Arkansas. “These guys here are pretty cool. It’s nice to be back here in Burlington.”

Burlington, and center field at Community Field, are familiar places for Riley. He played two seasons at Southeastern Community College then played with the Bees while attending Eastern Illinois.

Riley hit .307 at Eastern Illinois, leading the Panthers to the Ohio Valley Conference tournament title and a spot in the NCAA tournament. Eastern Illinois was eliminated in its two games in the Vanderbilt Regional, but getting to experience Southeastern Conference baseball was something he enjoyed.

“I thought it was a really good way to go out,” said Riley, who hit .375 in the two tournament games and was named to the all-regional team. “It was a really good year, historically, for EIU, too. So I thought maybe that was a good way to go out, but then going to the Vandy Regional, that was a blast.’

It was a lot of fun. It was a good experience. Sold-out crowd under the lights. Playoff baseball. You can’t beat that.”

Riley visited three Division I schools — Iowa, Gonzaga, and Arkansas.

“It was pretty stressful,” Riley said. “And I know for coaches, it’s pretty stressful with all of this transfer portal stuff. But at the same time, it was fun, too. I never got to go on a lot of visits when I was in high school.

“I was actually going to hang it up. I wasn’t going to play another year. Then Arkansas called, and I figured it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So I took advantage of that.”

Playing for one of the best programs in the SEC — Arkansas also played in the NCAA tournament — was the biggest selling point.

“I’m looking forward to being around future professional baseball players and surrounded by facilities that are going to develop you and make you a better baseball player — just the whole environment,” he said. “Honestly, they’ve got the best fans in the country, 13,000 fans, something like that. So I’m excited to see what they all have.”

One of the first people Riley called with the news was Bees manager Owen Oreskovich. Riley was working out at home, but wanted something more.

“He’s like, ‘What do you think about me coming down and just like taking (batting practice), fly balls, working out?’” Oreskovich said. “I was like, ‘How about you play some games because it’s free?’”

“It was kind of just me getting work in by myself. It was kind of tough,” Riley said. “So I called up O, asked him if I could get some work in before heading (to Arkansas). Luckily, O and I have a great relationship, and he’s like, ‘Heck yeah, come on down.’”

Riley hit .246 in 18 games with the Bees last season after hitting .237 in 51 games in 2021.

Oreskovich knows what he brings to the team.

“It’s nice to know he’s roaming around center field,” Oreskovich said. “And being very good at bat in the leadoff spot. He’s not going to look stupid up there.

“He’s a great baseball player, and an even better dude. Nobody works harder than that kid.”

Riley is staying with his host family for the last two seasons — Matt and Anika McVey.

“I called them to tell them I was coming and if there was a family that had a spot, and they said, ‘Nope, you’re staying with us,’” Riley said.

Riley has played in two games for the Bees, with one hit in six at-bats. He’ll be back with the team for most of the final week of the regular season.

“I just kind of want to get back into routine, kind of get acclimated to live arms and seeing the ball off the bat, and just being around the guys again, really,” Riley said. “Just continue to have fun. Because you don’t know when it’s going to be (the end).”

Photo: Lincoln Riley is back with the Burlington Bees for the final two weeks of the regular season before heading to Arkansas. (Steve Cirinna/Burlington Bees)