What did it mean to you when you got the head coaching position?
The family atmosphere here is something that I always kind of envisioned or looked for in finding a job, whether that’s as an assistant or head coach. The people here are special and you can’t find that at every university. When Coach Brown went down to New Mexico State, he wanted me to go with him down there, too. And that’s something that just didn’t really interest me and my fiancé at the time. I loved what we were building here and it’s something that I’ve been a part of for the last six or seven years. It was just cool to get the confidence and backing from the administration. I guess I’m somewhat young still at 36 and you just don’t find these types of opportunities at the Division I level to step in as a head coach. I just firmly believe in everything we’re doing here, not only baseballwise, but just in the athletic department. I believe in the vision and the resources that we have facility-wise and the off-the-field help with academics. There are a lot of good things happening here that people probably don’t know about. You get stereotyped because people don’t understand how you could have a successful baseball program in Fargo. It just kind of fits me and my personality of having that toughness and chip on our shoulder and being able to kind of prove people wrong.
What are some of your favorite spots around town? I have to imagine that you are pretty ingrained in the community at this point.
I honestly come to the other athletic events— basketball games, football games, those sorts of things. I think that’s the cool thing about Fargo with there not being any real pro sports teams in town besides the RedHawks. It’s all NDSU, all the time. I think that’s a big selling point in terms of recruiting. You are going to get a lot of community support here. So, I try to do the same thing and be supportive of the other coaches in the department and support staff and everything. I think it’s very important.
What’s the biggest adjustment you’ve had to make in your new role?
Really just dealing with more logistics. On the baseball side of it, things didn’t really change. I still do all of the pitching stuff on a day-to-day basis. Coach [Tanner] Neale and Coach [Trent] Keefer do more of the position player work. I like to let those guys go do their thing. They’re kind of the experts in that area.
What are a few things you would recommend young pitchers out there work on?
There’s a lot that goes into it, especially now. Everything seems so tech-driven. I’m probably more old-school mixed with maybe a little bit of new-school qualities here and there.
For pitchers, I love long toss. I think long toss is huge to build your arm strength and build your body. Another piece is just being obsessed with throwing strikes. I hate walks. I don’t care, necessarily, what the radar gun says. Obviously, to pitch at the Division I level, you need to meet a certain threshold to be successful, but throwing 95 doesn’t do you any good if you’re not throwing strikes and you’re walking people left and right. I think that that would probably be my number one thing.
You lost some key contributors from last year’s team. Who are you looking to step into those roles?
Yeah, we lost a few impact guys. Jake drew at the back end of our bullpen, had a zero ERA going into the last conference game. He’s been a guy that’s kind of been a mainstay in our bullpen so we’ll need to replace that. We’ll also need to replace Logan Williams, a Catcher DH guy for us that led the team in home runs last year.
I do feel like we’ve gotten a lot of pieces back from the team and some young guys that are capable of stepping up. We also went out and got a couple of guys from the transfer portal. Charlie Hesse played the last few years at third base for us. Right now, we have Jack Steil, a transfer from Nebraska. He’s a junior this year and he played a little bit for Nebraska the last couple years. He’s from Cold Spring originally and he’s a guy that we feel can make a huge impact not only defensively, but in the middle of our order. He’s a big physical dude that can hit for some power and has some experience. He’s the guy we need to step up.
We also added a catcher, Stephen Lund, a graduate transfer from Gonzaga. Will Busch has been our mainstay back there our last couple of years and he will continue to be, but when he needs a breather, we can put Stephen there and he can also play some DH for us. Stephen is a guy that had an injury and then came back to play last year and wasn’t quite right so his numbers weren’t great. But before that, his numbers were really good so he is another guy that can be in the middle of the lineup for us.
There are also a couple of freshmen that we’re excited about. Davis Hamilton is going to play a role for us in some capacity. Dallan Quigley is a junior college transfer that is a little outfielder that plays with a ton of energy and speed, and adds a dimension to our team both defensively and offensively that fits really well with what Coach Hunt is trying to do with our offense.
Pitching-wise, we have Carson Jacobs, a junior college pitcher from Gateway Community College in Arizona. He’s a big 6’9” right-handed pitcher that will be in the 91 to 94 range. He’s a guy with a little bit of college experience that we can rely on a little bit. And then Parker Puetz is a freshman from Volga, SD right outside of Brookings. He is another big physical guy that I think has a really bright future ahead of him. But I think we’ll need to use them right away as a freshman in some sort of impactful role from what we’ve seen so far.
We also have guys returning like Tristen Roehrich who we’re going to move from more of a bullpen role to a starting role. And then on the back end we have Joey Danielson who is a converted catcher to a right-handed pitcher. I think he is up to 95 miles an hour and is still very inexperienced, but he’s got the stuff that can really play at the back end. He just got his feet wet last year and I think he can keep making strides going forward.
What does it do for you as a coach having two really solid guys like Loven and Feeney in the rotation?
It’s comforting. Max had a down year last year, but I feel like he’s going to be in a better spot this year and is going to rebound pretty nicely. If he stays healthy and everything, he’s going to probably break the innings record for the school. When I have guys that have that type of experience, it’s comforting.
It seems like every year you have the opportunity to play some big programs. I think this year, you have an especially high number of those games with the likes of Texas, Texas Tech, Arizona and Arizona State. What does that do for you guys gearing up for conference play at the end of the season?
Yeah, it’s kind of a shift. One of the first things that I wanted to do as a head coach was schedule a little bit harder to give our guys experiences against some of the best of the best. I think it’s only a positive when you do that and I think in this day and age with where we’re at geographically, we have to think of it differently. If we’re going to get the kids that we want or think that we should be able to get, I think having a tough schedule helps. When you can call a kid and say, “Hey, our future schedules include Arizona, Arizona State, Texas and Texas Tech,” that’s going to get their attention.
We have a lot of talented guys that can play with anyone around the country. In order to showcase that more often, I think you have to go out and prove it and go play those types of teams. And I think we’re not afraid to play anyone, anytime, anywhere. That’s not to say we’re going to go out and win all those games. We’re gonna get our butts kicked every once in a while, but it’s going to give our team really good experience.
If you play a poor non-conference schedule, how much do you really learn about your team? We want to compete for championships. I think the only way to do that is to prepare them by playing the best around. And it gives them a really cool experience.
Is there anything else you want to say to our readers?
We’re looking forward to the conference tournament being in Fargo for the first time. We have to make it there, but if we do, it’ll be a cool experience. Each year is a new group and a new team and can they come together and do something special.
