WKU Baseball: Rardin Bringing JUCO-Style Roster Building To the Hill. At least for 2024.
The Hilltoppers posted their best season on the diamond in recent memory in 2023. In 2024, the roster will feature 36 newcomers. Can Marc Rardin repeat last year's success despite the turnover?
The 2023 Western Kentucky baseball season was one of the more exciting campaigns in the program’s recent memory.
As was tradition under the John Pawlowski era of Hilltopper baseball, the Tops opened 2023 rather hot - going 14-4 up until conference play began - but fell off hard once CUSA play began, dropping 10 of their first 12 league games and sat at a 16-17 overall mark.
Coming off back-to-back conference series sweeps in early April, the Hilltoppers were sitting at 16-17 overall but just 2-10 in Conference USA play after a 5-4 loss to MTSU on Saturday, April 8, the final game of a three-game sweep at the hands of the Blue Raiders.
It was the second-straight CUSA series that ended with WKU having been swept and was the eighth-straight loss for the Tops.
But, unlike the JP years, the Hilltoppers were able to right the ship: Under new WKU Head Coach Marc Rardin, WKU won 15 of their final 22 games, with their only dropped series coming at the hands of then-17th ranked Dallas Baptist, the same team that ended their season in the Conference USA Tournament.
Under normal circumstances, spirits should be high ahead of 2024, with us all waiting with baited breath to see how the Tops will follow up last year’s scorched-earth ending.
However, this offseason for WKU baseball was anything other than normal.
Ahead of his second year at the helm, head coach Marc Rardin completely overhauled his roster (mostly by choice), with only eight players from 2023 set to return to the Hill in 2024. Only one of those returning players is a position player, catcher Camden Ross, who was essentially WKU’s backup backstop, playing in just 10 conference games and seeing time in 33 games overall (making 24 starts).
It’s a unique spot for the Tops to be in: How can you maintain success from one year to another with, essentially, a brand new roster?
Luckily for WKU, they have someone at the helm who is used to high turnover.
Prior to his being named the head coach on the Hill, Rardin spent almost his entire collegiate coaching career (and his entire head coaching career) at the JUCO level, where rosters are consistently in flux, with players having two or less years to make an impact before getting their next opportunity.
It’s a fruitful recruiting ground that Rardin knows well and is hoping to exploit: Of the 36 newcomers to the roster in 2024, 27 come from the JUCO (or Division II) ranks.
In October, Perfect Game - one of the premier scouting and development organizations in the country - named the three incoming Hilltoppers to their “Top JUCO to Four-Year School Transfers” for the 2024 campaign: Brady Browning (UTL, No. 38), Zach Dueñas (RHP, No. 44) and Ethan Lizama (OF, No. 49).
2024 will prove to be something of an inflection point in what WKU will be under Rardin in a number of ways. Can Rardin repeat last year’s success despite the roster turnover? Will Rardin take a JUCO approach to roster building year over year or will this year’s roster be the building blocks as Rardin becomes fully entrenched in the role?
The early results will be fruitful. If the Tops get to mid-March well over .500, we could - as they say - have ourselves a ballclub worth getting excited about again. If it’s not going so well, do WKU pundits snap back at Rardin for a questionable overhaul?
Only time will tell.