Chaminade University has a baseball team once again, and the season is officially starting on Thursday. The last time there was a Chaminade baseball team was 43 years ago back in 1981. This is much more than just rebuilding a program, but starting it from the ground up.
“Nothing is easy … but things did really start to fall into place,” said Chaminade baseball head coach Chad Konishi, who was an associate head coach at University of Hawaii from 2002 to 2013, during an interview in mid January.
The home opener and first game of the season is against Cal State East Bay, on Thursday at 6 p.m, at Waipahu Regional Park Baseball Complex.
Building the program from the ground up has come with many challenges. Chaminade University lacks a baseball field for the players, which means the team has had to commute to other fields. The main field that the Silverswords have been practicing at is Ala Wai Community Baseball fields in Honolulu. Recently the fields have been closed due to maintenance/construction, so the team started practicing in Kailua, which involves a 30-minute commute from campus. Finding where Chaminade’s home games would be was a massive struggle as well. Our home field is in Waipahu at Regional Park Baseball Complex, and the players have to drive themselves there.
“It was a lot of work … I am really proud of these young men who are here,” said Konishi.
When the recruiting process started nine months ago, Konishi was ready to recruit Chaminade’s new team. Konishi started with no players on the roster, unlike most collegiate baseball teams who only recruit 10 to 15 players going into a new season. The current roster has 26 freshmen, 12 juniors, two seniors, and one graduate student.
Out of the 41 players 10 of the men are from Hawaii, and one was a graduate of Saint Louis High School. The last two additions to the team increased Konishi’s confidence, specifically the 41st player to join the team, JT Navyac, who is a senior pitcher/infielder. Navyac previously played for Cal State Fullerton, which is a Division I school, and played in 102 games over three years there.
“He brings so much experience, an older experience guy on the left side of the infield,” said Konishi. “The fact that Fullerton never used him on the mound … he is extremely gifted as a pitcher, and we will use him that way.”
The team had many hurdles that they had to conquer with one being half the team is made of freshman players, who have never played at a collegiate level. Luckily, the transfer students have been setting great examples of the reality of collegiate baseball.
“The biggest challenge was developing a culture for a fresh team,” said Cato Kleinman, who is a junior infielder. “Being a first year program it is really difficult to establish how things are ran.”
Konishi expressed gratitude to Chaminade University has been incredibly helpful with the process of getting a collegiate baseball team back into the university.
When the players and head coach were asked about what successes they hope to have when going into the season. They all responded with just wanting to go out and play the best a new team/program can. When practicing and scrimmaging the team has looked to be promising.
“Going into this season I am feeling really good, the guys work well together, and our practices are competitive,” said Xavier Stoker, who is a junior pitcher.
The baseball season will consist of 50 games not including the any of the championship games. On Apr. 16 Chaminade will go up against University of Hawaii, which is a Division I team. For the rest of the season Chaminade plays against University of Hawaii Hilo, Hawaii Pacific University, Point Loma, Cal State East Bay, and many others that are Division II.