The Season
Bases loaded. Two outs. Down by four in the bottom of the ninth inning.
No situation in any sport runs through more imaginations than the one Stephen Vogt stepped into during an NAIA World Series elimination game against Houston Baptist University on a late May afternoon in Lewiston, Idaho. It was a situation both children who can barely lift their own bat, and professionals who earn millions, dream about. Azusa Pacific sent the perfect man to the plate: one of its senior leaders, a hitter who had shattered nearly every career record in program history. As Vogt stepped into the batter’s box, his teammate of four years, fellow senior Scott Hodsdon, awaited his turn in the on-deck circle.
With the culmination of an entire four-year career looming, the senior tandem was hardly intimidated by the pressure-packed scenario. While taking Azusa Pacific’s baseball program back to the NAIA World Series for the first time since 1984, the pair led the Cougars to 22 come-from-behind victories. When the going got tough, Vogt and Hodsdon were at their best, driving in and scoring tying and game-winning runs, getting on base, and stroking base hits and home runs. With the bases loaded, the pair was a combined 11-for-21 (.524 average) in what had already proven to be a historic 2007 campaign.
But no recap, number, or statistic can truly paint the story of a pair of young men who made the choice to pursue excellence in every area of their lives, not just on the diamond. Although baseball remains their passion, their leadership surfaced throughout the Azusa Pacific campus, which has come to embrace a Cougar baseball program led by head coach Paul Svagdis. The team hosted free baseball clinics for local baseball teams throughout the season, and the athletes themselves earned a campus-wide reputation for their disciplined, respectful nature – traits best exemplified by the team’s senior leaders.
As what was destined to be the final pitch of the Cougars’ 2007 season buzzed toward the plate, Vogt brought his bat toward the ball, a swing that had been refined through four long years of hard work and time spent in the batting cage.
