Editor’s note: All week long, the Union-Tribune is previewing San Diego’s college baseball teams. First up: Point Loma Nazarene.
Point Loma Nazarene’s baseball program has won three straight PacWest championships and advanced to the NCAA Division II championship series two of the past three years.
The attitude within the program, despite graduation losses, is to reload, not rebuild.
“How you keep sustained winning is maintaining certain standards and a certain culture that you have in place,” PLNU coach Justin James said. “No matter who you bring in, they have to adhere to those. That includes a certain style of play, how we pitch and how we like to run our offense.”
PLNU (4-2) lost two of three games to Chico State in its season-opening series two weeks ago. The Sea Lions steadied themselves last week with a three-game sweep of Colorado School of Mines.
Conference play already is upon PLNU, which will play a four-game home-and-home series against Biola this week.
2024 record: 46-13-1 overall; 25-6-1 PacWest
Top returners: The Sea Lions welcome back four players who earned all-PacWest honors — 1B/DH/C Jake Entrekin (.365, 15 HR, 64 RBIs), 3B Bryson Hashimoto (.299, 5 HR, 43 RBIs), RHP Ray Cebulski (10-2, 3.55 ERA) and RHP Christian Williams (4-2, 2.55 ERA). LHP Brandon Jackel (2-1, 4.54 ERA) moves into the starting rotation. C Tommy Molina (.250, 3 HR, 16 RBIs) and CF Owen May (.305, 2 HR, 9 RBIs) move into starting roles in the field. Entrekin, Molina and Jackel are all Steele Canyon High School alums.
Key additions: Transfer SS Luke Reece (Serra High School/Cal State San Marcos) and P Colin Driscoll (Saint Martin’s) both earned preseason All-West Region honors from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. Transfer RHPs Nathan Ward (Grand Canyon), Bobby Brown (Biola) and Brock Mayer (Chaffey College) are expected to make an immediate impact as well. True freshman INF Levi Ham (Maranatha Christian High School) is bidding for a starting spot.
Outlook: The Sea Lions lost six of eight starters in the field, but were the ranked No. 5 in the Division II preseason poll.
Reece should provide an offensive boost after batting .354 with 12 homers and 48 RBIs last season at Cal State San Marcos. Williams could be tasked with closing games. He has a tough act to follow after James Sashin had a school-record 18 saves a year ago.
“It’s natural to say there’s going to be some growing pains, but they handled it pretty well last weekend (with the Colorado Mines sweep),” James said. “The biggest challenge throughout the fall I thought was going to be the pitching. We have good pitchers. We’re deep. But our new pitchers are still learning how we run our pitching. They’re all coming from difference places, so there’s different things they were used to. The concern is making sure we play defense at a regional-style level and being able to do some of the smaller stuff offensively. We’ll be able to hit, but can we move runners when we need to?”
Preseason prediction: PacWest coaches poll: 1. PLNU (9 first-place votes), 2. Westmont (2), 3. Concordia (1), 4. Azusa Pacific, 5. Hawaii Pacific, 6. Fresno Pacific, T7. Biola, T7. Jessup, 9. Vanguard, 10. Hawaii-Hilo, 11. Chaminade, 12. Menlo.
PacWest Tournament: The top four teams from the regular season meet May 7-9 for the PacWest Tournament title. The winner earns an automatic berth in the NCAA Division II Regionals.
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