The baseball team looks to improve off a strong showing in 2024. Collegian stock photo.
NHU-HAN BUI | STAFF REPORTER | hbui@butler.edu
After ending the 2024 season with a 20-35 record, the Butler baseball team is looking for their first winning season since 2018. The team is coming off a year that saw them break school records for most home runs and total bases in a single season.
First pitch for the Bulldogs will come against Tarleton State on Feb. 14. They then head to Norfolk State from Feb. 21-23 before their first home game against Bowling Green on Feb. 25.
Butler is led by head coach Blake Beemer, who is entering his third year in charge. After setting a school record for most losses in his first year, the team bounced back by winning eight more games the following year.
Beemer hopes that his growth will show through the players’ attitudes.
“I’ve grown as a coach year-to-year, and my hope [for this season] is to put our guys in better positions,” Beemer said. “I think they feed off my energy, and my hope is that if I can be a more consistent and level-headed leader, they’ll be consistent [and] level-headed players. We had a lot of growing pains last year, but hopefully, all of those will pay off as we get going.”
After losing key players such as shortstop Carter Dorighi, outfielder Joey Urban and infielder Kade Lewis to the MLB Draft and transfer portal over the offseason, Butler added 18 new players to reinforce its roster, including eight first-years.
“Sometimes your [first-years] have the deer-in-headlights [reaction], and your juniors and seniors don’t have that,” Beemer said. “They’ve been around the block and just compete to the best of their ability. I think if they can just go out and do that the way they’ve done all fall and winter, we’re going to be in a good spot.”
Another quality that new players bring to the team is a fresh mentality. Sophomore pitcher Simon Linde hopes that with the new additions, Butler can build off last year’s success and start to form a winning team culture.
“What I really hope to get from [the new players] is just coming in and setting that culture of success and helping us continue to build on what we improved last year,” Linde said. “[I hope they] bring in more and more competitiveness to our culture and help us cultivate a good, winning personality [for] the team.”
Even with all the new faces in the locker room, the team has quickly grown close thanks to several team-bonding activities. Redshirt junior outfielder Jack Moroknek said the team has naturally gravitated together as well.
“It’s probably the tightest team I’ve had in my four years here,” Moroknek said. “We do a lot of things off the field just to be with each other. We go out, go for food, play cards, anything. We also have a team Bible study that gets together every week.”
With a large first-year class, the returning players have also begun to step up into leadership roles. Although the baseball team does not have a captain, Moroknek believes there is one player who could be voted for the position.
“Ben Whiteside [has stepped into a leadership role], for sure,” Moroknek said. “He’s a senior pitcher and he’s been here all four years. He’s really been the ‘captain’ of this team. I think he would’ve been voted easily [for] our captain of the year. He is vocal, but only when he needs to be. He knows a time and a place to do things and he knows how to do it right.”
Along with Whiteside, there are also other players who are less vocal but still lead in their own ways. Linde feels that more players have stepped up to represent the team’s culture and lead by example.
“I think we’ve had a lot of guys step up into their own and maybe not be leaders [vocally], but we’ve had a lot more guys lead by example this year,” Linde said. “A lot of people represent what they want the program to look like and how they want things to be done, and a lot of guys will end up following that, just by seeing a good example be set. We’ve had a lot of good adjustments in people’s mentality.”
Butler’s success during the preseason saw Moroknek earn a spot on the Preseason All-Big East Team and land at 89th on D1Baseball’s Preseason Top 100 Outfielders list. Moroknek said that the honors motivate him to show that he deserves those spots.
“Obviously it’s nice to get those honors, but at the end of the day they are preseason rankings for a reason, so I think that’s what keeps me going,” Moroknek said. “It’s nice to have it in the back of your mind like, ‘Hey, you are recognized as a good player,’ but if you’re not going to perform then no one’s really going to care at the end of the day.”
A tight-knit team gives the Bulldogs confidence that they can build off their success from last season. Although Butler has seen lots of change over the past year, its end goal remains the same.
“The goal is the same as every year,” Beemer said. “We want to make it to Brasco Park [and] be in the top half of the conference in the Big East so [that] we have a chance to play for regional. I think the only way to do that is to take it one game at a time and one pitch at a time. If we can stay in the moment, we’re going to control our destiny at the end of the year.”
