USU Baseball builds off success
Utah State’s club baseball team, which operates through Campus Recreation, is receiving national attention. After going undefeated in the regular season and regional championship, they earned the top overall seed in the National Club Baseball Association World Series.
The Aggies would go winless in the end-of-season tournament, but head coach Jake Anderson still took a lot of positives from a season that began in Las Vegas at the end of March.
“One of the most telling signs of our season as a whole was our first tournament. Every year we go down to those tournaments, and we’re just coming from playing inside, so I didn’t have high expectations,” Anderson said. “They went down there and they beat up on everybody that we played. And so that was one of those moments like, ‘Oh my gosh, this team is super good.’”
In the tournament, the Aggies faced UCLA, Oregon, Long Beach State, and Arizona State. USU outscored its opponents by a combined score of 38-5 in four games, winning each one.
The Aggies compete in the Northern Pacific East Conference with Boise State, Montana State, Weber State, Idaho State and the University of Montana. USU has emerged as a dominant force within their conference, winning 11 straight conference titles.
A large part of their success, according to Anderson, stems from each year’s team building upon the success of the prior year.
“Seeing the program go from being competitive to being dominant in our conference has been really neat to see. One thing that continues is a lot of in-state talent comes in. Nobody’s coming to Utah State just to play baseball,” Anderson said. “Players have seen that we have a competitive club team and when they have their decisions down to a couple of schools…they end up coming to Utah State because it seems really attractive.”
In an environment without recruiting or scholarship offers, being competitive is crucial for the baseball team to retain talent. One of last season’s leaders was senior shortstop and captain Brayden Howard.
Like most others on the team, Brayden did not come to Utah State “just to play baseball.”
“I kind of just discovered it, to be honest. Beforehand, I was at a junior college up in Montana, played two years there, and then wanted to come to USU because my girlfriend was here and they had engineering. So I’m like, ‘Alright, I’ll try out and see how the team is,’ and it ended up being one of the best teams I’ve ever played with,” Howard said.
Last year, Howard put up gaudy numbers at the plate. In over 80 plate appearances, he accumulated a .587 batting average while adding 2 home runs and 23 RBIs. He also led the team with 42 runs scored and 15 doubles.
Anderson also praised Howard’s leadership.
“Brayden makes the team go. He really does. I’m going to kind of help facilitate some stuff and make sure that they can focus on the games by getting some things scheduled, but on the field — man, they just take care of themselves. We had some incredible leadership, specifically Brayden.”
One of the unique aspects of the team is the sacrifice both players and coaches make to keep things running smoothly. The four-man coaching staff are volunteers, and players pay fees to travel to tournaments and keep the program operating. This creates an environment much different from other scholarship programs at Utah State.
“It’s not all politics. Like if you’re good, you’re going to play,” Howard said. “I played on scholarship at a juco, and it just felt like it was straight business. You weren’t allowed to have fun. You know, you’re there to work. But playing here at USU, it’s like we’re here to have fun.”
Although the season ended with two disappointing losses to UW-Whitewater and Colorado in the NCBA World Series, the experience they had while participating was not lost on the players.
“I was not expecting everything that went into it. They have broadcasters, they have live streams, they have announcers, you get walk-up songs. Just such a cool experience for us to be a part of,” Howard said. “Parents come in, and they’re blown out of the water and are just amazed by the time and effort and the money that goes into club baseball where nobody’s on scholarship. It’s just so cool.”
The Aggies have been to 4 NCBA World Series tournaments since 2012, and they won the national championship in 2012 and 2014.
Anderson hopes to build off of their back-to-back appearances next year, but they will have some key players to replace — unlike the year before, when the Aggies returned their entire starting lineup.
“I think we’ll fill those holes pretty well. It’s hard to replace the talent of those players, but that’s just what this program does. Every year, we have somebody like Brayden show up,” Anderson said. “Guys just show, kind of out of nowhere. We will see, because we’ll get to the fall and maybe there will be another great player that shows up in tryouts.”
For more information on the team and their schedule for next season, visit usubaseball.com.