Newcomers boost repeat chances
True champions never sit still, always looking for the next edge to further achieve greatness. Although the Utah State baseball club returned nearly all of their national championship team from last year, three new starters are proving vital to Aggie repeat hopes.
Junior Colton Anderson, freshman Kolton Anderson and sophomore Brandon Peterson joined the team this season and are producing in multiple ways for the defending champions.
“We’ve got a pretty good group of guys,” Peterson said. “We’re having a good time playing ball, going around and just having a good time.”
All three took different paths to arrive at Utah State and become key cogs of the No. 8-ranked team in the nation. Peterson, the starting shortstop, is the only member of the group from Cache Valley and grew up hoping to be part of the Aggies. He wasn’t convinced, however, until going against some of the Utah State team members in a local summer league.
“Garrett Schiffman and Matt Stranski were playing on the Providence team and we were playing against them,” Peterson said. “They actually started talking to me about coming to play. I got thinking about it a little bit and decided to come out and give it a try.”
Peterson said his hardest transition hasn’t been on the field but in the classroom, where he has had to find a balance between team travel and academics.
“It’s tough for a little bit packing it in with school during the week,” he said. “We’re playing all our games on the weekends. On the summer team I was on, we’d just play one game a day all throughout the week.”
Mixing the new players in with the old has been a bit of a transition, but Peterson said he feels the team is now coming together.
“It’s always a little bit of an adjustment getting the chemistry back, figuring out where the new guys can play on the field, how they’ll work with the guys you have coming back,” Peterson said. “Those are the kind of things that get fixed with more time and experience.”
For Colton, who normally plays catcher, his path took him from playing for a scholarship elsewhere to joining the Aggies.
“My freshman and sophomore year I was playing baseball for a junior college in Kansas. It’s called Dodge City,” he said. “I had a few offers to go and play after that and I was trying to decide.”
After his team won the region championship, Colton returned home for the summer. An accident broke five vertebrae, four in his back and one in his neck.
“When I did that I lost all of my scholarship offers,” he said. “My game plan has always been to come back up to Utah State and get my wildlife and science degree. As soon as my offers went to go play someplace else, I was Utah State all the way.”
Colton missed the fall season while he was still recovering, but said he is now fine and enjoying the difference between this team and his old one.
“It makes the adjustment pretty easy when you’re all hanging out on weekends and just getting along well together – there’s no clashing on the field,” he said. “The intensity of the junior college level that I was at before was a lot more intense. It was seven days a week and an hour in the weight room every single day. Here it’s one or two practices a week for two hours.”
Having the same-sounding name as non-related teammate Kolton has been fun, he said.
“The whole team, we kind of joke about it, they’ll say ‘Colton’ and we’ll both answer,” Colton said. “Kolton with a ‘K,’ I don’t know why, but his nickname’s ‘Special K.’ So as a team, we refer to him as ‘Special K’ and I’m just regular Colton.”
The same applies with the players last names.
“There have been moments like this last week when they’ll say ‘Colton,’ and we’ll both look, and they’ll say ‘Anderson,’ and we’re both still looking,” Kolton said.
“Special K” played for Weber State in the fall and got to know the Utah State players while on base there. He transferred to Utah State this semester, due to schooling and his girlfriend, and the players convinced him to come on board.
“I ran into them at the hockey game, and they said to come out to practice,” Kolton said. “I ran into them at the hockey game again, and they said ‘Are you serious, because we want you to come to our game this week,’ so I showed up and came to the game.”
Kolton now starts at first base and is currently leading the team in hitting with a .415 average. After a two-year hiatus from the game, he returned from an LDS mission in the fall and said his bat is now fully back.
“At first it was a little rusty, but it came back pretty quick as soon as I could see the ball again,” he said. “Scott, our assistant coach, he’s been helping me a little bit lately.”
All three players agreed they love the atmosphere of playing for Utah State.
“The guys at Utah State are a lot nicer, a lot cooler guys, easier to get along with,” Kolton said. “It’s been an easier transfer up here than it was at Weber.”
Colton agreed and said the team is unified and looking for another championship.
“It’s a lot more enjoyable in the sense you don’t have to stress baseball so much,” he said. “It’s just the love of the game and having fun out here playing the game. Show up, work out with the guys, it’s a good time. You don’t get overwhelmed with it.”
– m.hop@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter:@legendarymhops