It took the Kennesaw State baseball program five years of Division I competition to reach last season’s peaks.
A former national champion at both the NAIA (1994) and NCAA Division II (1996) levels, KSU has been on the upswing, steadily improving its results since becoming a full-fledged member of collegiate athletics’ top tier in August of 2009.
All those years of plugging away paid off in 2014 when the Owls put together the best baseball season in school history.
A program-record 40 victories helped secure the Owls’ first Atlantic Sun Conference title and first-ever NCAA Division I regional berth. KSU went on to defeat Alabama to claim the NCAA Tallahassee Regional Championship to become the first team in 21 years and fifth all-time to win a baseball regional in its debut.
The squad fell to Louisville in two close games in the Super Regional, falling just shy of the College World Series.
What can long-time head coach Mike Sansing and the Owls do for an encore?
Plenty.
The Owls return almost 80 percent of their pitching and 50 percent of their hitting from a team that went 40-24 a year ago and are picked to win their second straight Atlantic Sun title.
With the first pitch of the 2015 season just hours away, this year’s edition of the Owls have a lot to live up to, but expectations haven’t lessened, even with the loss of four players to the 2014 MLB Draft including the Johnny Bench Award winner and Toronto Blue Jays first round draft pick Max Pentecost.
“The team is healthy and we’re just fine tuning some of our team defenses right now,” said third-year assistant coach Derek Simmons.
“We have been scrimmaging a lot over these last three weeks and you never know if you are ready, but we will find out a little bit about our team over the weekend.”
Every college baseball team entered the preseason with a list of things to get better at. That list probably wasn’t as long for KSU as it was for many teams in the Atlantic Sun. The Owls return a pair of top-flight starters in juniors Travis Bergen and Jordan Hillyer. They are a veteran group with 13 upperclassmen that also added one of the country’s most coveted recruits, three-time high school All-American catcher Griffin Helms.
“Even though we do have a lot of returners back in key spots we still wanted to develop our players in the fall and during preseason practices,” said Simmons.” Pitchers might be working on a certain pitch or adding a pitch to their arsenal while the returning hitters were learning more about their swing and their approach.”
He added, “There is always room for improvement and we as coaches feel that if our players can individually get their game better than that ultimately makes the team better.”
KSU will open the season Feb. 13 ranked No.19 in the Baseball America poll, No. 24 in the Perfect Game poll, No. 26 in NCBWA poll and No. 27 in Collegiate Baseball’s poll. They also received votes in the USA Today Coaches’ Poll.
Simmons isn’t sidestepping the expectations for the Owls. But the preseason rankings haven’t won a game yet, either.
“Our guys are excited about the preseason rankings and it’s a great recognition for our program, but they are preseason rankings,” he said.
“Losing key members of our team last year will no question hurt us but guys will have to step up and in order to our program to continue to grow we need to take another step in getting back to a regional.”
In other words, the Owls are flattered, but there’s work to do first.
A lot of that of course hinges on pitching.
Junior right-hander Jordan Hillyer (7-3, 3.48 ERA, 1.37 WHIP) is securely locked into the Friday night starter role for the second straight year. The Owls’ workhorse racked up 75 strikeouts in 101 innings and held opposing batters to a .258 average to earn a spot on the 2014 Atlantic Sun all-conference second team.
Meanwhile, 2014 Tallahassee Regional MVP Travis Bergen (9-5, 2.89 ERA, 1.20 WHIP) paced the rotation with team-bests in strikeouts, wins and ERA as the control-specialist ranked second in the A-Sun in strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.2), strikeouts (78) and was 40th in the nation with a 1.35 BB/9IP. Saturdays will be in the hands of the junior southpaw, who was one of three starting pitchers named to the 2015 A-Sun Preseason All-Conference team.
Sophomore Gabe Friese (2-2, 3.19 ERA) is being counted on to fill another spot in the weekend rotation after landing on the A-Sun All-Freshmen Team.
Senior Nathan Harsh (3-3, 4.92 ERA) made 16 appearances on the mound last year with eight starts and is primed for a big senior campaign.
Sophomore Chris Erwin (3-1, 3.16) showed flashes of big things to come when he struck out 33 batters in 42 and 2/3 innings with eight starts to earn Atlantic Sun Conference All-Freshmen Team honors. Erwin also hit .318 at the plate (7-for-22) with a trio of multi-hit games.
Junior college transfer Brock Turner joins KSU after two seasons at Middle Georgia College. The versatile righty had a stellar sophomore campaign (5-1,1.66 ERA) where he allowed just seven earned runs in 38 innings with 14 walks and 32 strikeouts.
Turner throws three pitches for strikes with a good breaking ball and is expected to be one of the Owls’ top relievers.
Simmons added that freshmen pitchers A.J. Moore, Tony Dibrell and Logan Hutchinson will be used in numerous roles as midweek starters and bullpen pieces on weekends.
Will Solomon (4.31 ERA, 25 K, 31.1 IP) and Kendall Hawkins (4.11 ERA, 11 K, 15.1 IP) also return in the bullpen.
A replacement has not been named for door-slammer Justin McCalvin, a nineteenth-round pick of the Tampa Bay Rays.
“We’re going to put a number of guys in the closer role and try to match it up to see where we are at during the end of games,” said Simmons. “You have to be winning at the end of games to need your closer so hopefully we will get some opportunities to figure out who that guy will be.”
According to Coach Simmons, things are mostly set in the field.
The Owls return four position players that had at least 40 starts in 2014, including second team preseason All-American Alex Liquori. The junior outfielder posted a .354/.417/.500 slash with 19 extra base hits, 42 RBI and 37 runs en route to second team all-conference honors.
KSU also brings back junior shortstop Kal Simmons, who rounded out the Owls’ all-conference preseason selections. Simmons backed up his freshman All-American certificate with a .272/.332/.313 sophomore slate including 73 hits and 26 RBI. He ranked fourth in the A-Sun with 190 assists and was named the league’s second-team shortstop.
Junior Brennan Morgan (.281/.357/.386) split his time as the Owls’ designated hitter and backup catcher and committed only one error in 54 games for a team-high .993 fielding percentage. Morgan, along with Chris McGowan, Justin Motley, Cornell Nixon and Jeremy Howell look to better the Owls’ gaudy .297 team batting average—good enough for 18th in the nation last season.
Even with the experience returning, talented freshmen catcher/outfielder Griffin Helms, infielder Grant Williams and outfielder Matt Mixon will look to make an impact right away.
Simmons called Helms (6’0, 215) the fastest player on the squad and expects him to play a lot this season. He also spoke highly of junior college transfer Corey Greeson, a switch- hitting infielder with good bat control who can execute the hit-and-run and man the hot corner.
“The first weekend and the first couple of weekends we will give everyone an opportunity, so the coaches can see where we’re at before heading into conference play,” said Simmons.
For now, Simmons is hoping the confidence built up during the past three seasons helps carry the team to continued success. KSU narrowly missed an at-large regional berth in 2012 and lost the 2013 Atlantic Sun championship game (and subsequent automatic bid) to East Tennessee State.
“Winning last season was a big weight off our shoulders,” he said. “It felt like everyone exhaled.”
The success has created a noticeable shift in program culture. Several redshirt freshmen paid their own way to Tallahassee last year to watch the NCAA Regional .Competition within the team has resulted in the players pushing each other instead of the coaches pushing the players.
“I don’t think I have walked by our indoor hitting facility without hearing someone hit and I always hear our players throwing or taking extra ground balls,” said Simmons. “The expectation level has grown and our guys feel that and have been working extremely hard.” Expectations are as high as they’ve ever been around the program as the Owls head into the 2015 season with legitimate dreams of making the school’s second straight Super Regional appearance and possibly a run to the College World Series. KSU also has its sights set on winning its first-ever Atlantic Sun regular season crown.
“Playing in an atmosphere like Louisville in last year’s Super Regional is something our players still talk about and how can we get back,” said Simmons. “You can’t get to Omaha without first getting to regional and that’s our goal every season.”
Kennesaw State has legitimate questions both offensively (who will replace Max Pentecost’s bat) and defensively (the Owls committed 99 errors last year and ranked dead-last in the A-Sun in fielding percentage).
Friday, the work begins on those question marks.
Kennesaw State opens the season today at home against Liberty (41-28 in 2014). The Owls will then play a doubleheader on Saturday versus St. John’s University (35-20).
