Trojan Baseball Leaps to No. 9 in Preseason Poll

NAIA Baseball Coaches' Top-25 Preseason Poll | 2022-2023 TU Honors Page

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The 2023-2024 NAIA Baseball Coaches' Top-25 Preseason Rating was released Wednesday afternoon, and Taylor came in at No. 9 in the poll. TU was bumped up 10 spots from its final 2022-2023 rating of 19th.

The Trojans are coming off a 42-17 season in which they set school records for most runs, home runs, walks and total bases. The team's pitching staff also produced the second most strikeouts on its way to the 42-win season, good for second most in program history.

Two wins in the 2023 NAIA World Series – the program's first World Series victories since 1969 – leading to a program-best fifth-place finish in the NAIA helped move the needle from the previous coaches' rating taken before the World Series commenced. Cementing TU's case as a preseason top-10 team are top returning pitchers Matt Dutkowski, Dalton Swinehart, Alec Holcomb and Jack Ross. In the lineup, four of the top five hitters in batting average from 2023 return, headlined by Kaleb Kolpien, Mason David and Brayden Manning, who all slugged over .500 last season.

In all, six Trojans – David, Dutkowski, Holcomb, Camden Knepp, Kolpien, and Ross – return as All-Crossroads League players from a season ago to lead the 2024 squad.

TU opens the season in Surprise, Ariz., on Jan. 25, 2024, with a four-game series against Ottawa University-Arizona.