In Focus

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.

The Situation

Those four years of work are what Svagdis refers to as part of “the process,” a coaching philosophy that emphasizes consistency, mental approach, and execution. It is a mindset that affects every aspect of the game, both in practice and in competition. It affects the way each player approaches the game in the field, at the plate, and on the pitcher’s mound. It affects every player in every situation, and it is the key to Svagdis’ coaching style.

“We’re talking about the fundamentals of the game,” said Svagdis. “There’s a process you need to adhere to in order to execute and have success. We are all going to make mistakes, but if we do the little things the right way, the big picture takes care of itself.”

In the wake of a 24-25 campaign in 2006 and a third straight season without a postseason appearance, the little things became that much more important, especially for Vogt and Hodsdon. Both experienced individual success at Azusa Pacific, and both were respected leaders in the clubhouse and on campus. They bought into the process, and they were ready to lead the Cougars into a season for the ages, one in which they crushed the program wins record by tallying 51 victories in 61 games.

“Coach Svagdis taught us to focus not only on winning, but also on developing yourself as a man of God and as a future husband,” said Vogt, a four-time NAIA All-American who went 7-for-9 with three home runs, three doubles, and nine RBIs in a pair of midweek games in the 48 hours following his marriage proposal to his girlfriend, Azusa Pacific hoopster Alyssa Ferdaszewski ’08.

“Coach taught us how to play the game the right way, and how to be a good person. If you do the little things right, everything will come together for you in the end. I learned how to go through each little goal to attain the overall goal, which is to win and to be a good person while doing it,” said Vogt.

Hodsdon, meanwhile, had no shortage of heroic efforts himself. At the plate, he shattered Azusa Pacific’s 10-year-old season home run record, along with the season RBI mark, finishing with 26 home runs and 100 RBIs. His go-ahead grand slam in the NAIA West Coast Super Regional lifted the Cougars to a victory over eventual NAIA champion Lewis-Clark State College, but it was his overpowering pitching that helped spark Azusa Pacific to a program-record winning streak that lasted 24 games, a 46-day stretch in which no team could top the Cougars.

Hodsdon threw 34 consecutive scoreless innings over the final month-and-a-half of the regular season, leading Azusa Pacific on its record-winning streak that included the clinching of the Cougars’ ninth GSAC baseball championship.

The Rest of the Story

But back in Lewiston, Stephen Vogt’s line drive never touched the outfield grass that May afternoon, and Scott Hodsdon stood waiting in the on-deck circle as the Cougars’ miracle season came to its final resting place. Still, nearly to a man, the entire Azusa Pacific team lined up to embrace their senior leaders, whose collegiate careers had just concluded. There was no banner, and there would be no trophy presentation, but Azusa Pacific baseball did not need one.

“When you have a team of guys walking up to a couple of individuals, embracing them, there was obviously a special bond created between those players,” said Svagdis. “They’ve left a really great model of what a leader should look like in our baseball program, and I think the guys valued that. It’s a pleasure for me to walk back this fall and be able to point out these guys as exemplifying the values this program stands for.”

“I have been so impressed with Paul’s commitment to his players and their spiritual development,” said Azusa Pacific President Jon R. Wallace, DBA. “The fact that local Little League teams work out with the APU men weekly reminds our student athletes that God has called them to excellence both on the field and off.”

It had never been about the outcome anyway – it was all about the process. Cougar baseball 2007 had set out to pursue excellence, and as it turns out, did just that.

Joe Reinsch ’03 is the assistant sports information director in the Athletics Department. jreinsch@apu.edu

Editor’s Note:

Stephen Vogt and Scott Hodsdon, co-GSAC Players of the Year, were selected in the Major League Baseball first-year player draft. The Oakland Athletics snatched up Hodsdon in the midst of a run of seven-straight pitchers and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays selected Vogt as their first catcher for the 2007 draft.