Freshman baseball player leads in GLVC statistics

Freshman Nick Steurer won the starting second base job early in the year and is currently first in the GLVC in batting average, hitting .436 in 117 plate appearances, and is leading his team in hits with 51. Steurer said after the first day of practice, he was 100% confident he could compete and make contributions for the Bulldogs.

“I wasn’t originally going to play, and then this was kind of just the last offer I had,” Steurer said. “I knew [I could compete] as soon as I practiced day one. I was like, yeah, I can compete with all these guys.”

Steurer has not only competed with his own team but is near the top of the GLVC in a few other statistics. He has stolen 22 bases in 24 attempts, putting him in fifth place. Steurer also has 16 doubles, putting him in second place in the conference. The Bulldogs have never had a player end the year in the top five of any positive batter statistic since 2015, when the GLVC started keeping its stats digitally.

Dan Davis, head coach of Truman’s baseball team said that Steurer’s approach was unique in how little pressure he puts on himself and how successful he has been at the plate this season.

“Nick is an extreme competitor and a winner. He is one of the guys that does not put pressure on himself,” Davis said. “He just plays hard and he believes in himself better than probably anybody else on our team.”

His freshman counterpart and outfielder, Joey Fentress, is also a key contributor for the Bulldogs. This season, Fentress leads the team in walks [18] and is tied for home runs [4] with Tyler Tieman. Fentress said Tieman has helped him slow the game down at the collegiate level. Fentress said when he goes up to the plate, his mindset is to hit the ball hard, and if the barrel catches the ball, “good things happen.”

Davis said Fentress is currently struggling against off-speed pitches. After the April 12 games, Fentriss holds 42 strikeouts, making him third in total strikeouts in the GLVC. Coach Davis said that even though Fentress has struggled at times this year, he will be a special ball player once he makes some adjustments.

“The young buck in him is gonna have to learn like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna get a lot of off-speed stuff–okay, I’m gonna have to stay back and drive the ball back side so I can get the fastball that I’m really good at hitting,’ and he mashes fastballs,” Davis said. “When he gets it figured out, he is a very blessed hitter. He’s special.”

Davis said he does not care about age or seniority when it comes to playing time, he looks for players who earn the spot. Davis said he was refreshed to see how many young players were confident to contribute this year, and at one point, he had five freshmen on the field with a few freshman pitchers contributing on the mound as well.

The Bulldogs are currently 11-26 on the year and 5-19 in conference bouts. Davis said the youth of the team was not the main factor in the team’s struggles this year, as the team features a large number of upperclassmen.

“We can’t fall back on that,” Davis said. “We still have 14 juniors. Over half of our team is upperclassmen. It’s just the guys that are playing on a regular basis are a little bit younger. We have some very serious self-inflicted pressure put on ourselves, and you can just see it in at-bats. You can see it on the mound. You can see it playing defense. You can see it in all kinds of things.”