‘Mark of a national program’: K-State baseball trending up ahead of NCAA Regional
The Kansas State baseball program honors its best teams on the right-field wall inside Tointon Family Stadium.
That is there where every spectator is reminded that the Wildcats have reached the NCAA Tournament six times, making their first appearance in 2009 and their most recent trip in 2024. K-State will soon repaint the wall, because the Wildcats will once again play in an NCAA regional later this week.
Head coach Pete Hughes hopes that K-State is just getting started. He is eyeing a second consecutive trip to an NCAA Super Regional ... and perhaps the first trip to the College World Series in program history.
Still, reaching the postseason in back-to-back seasons is a major achievement for K-State baseball ... period.
“To have sustained success is the mark of a national program,” Hughes said. “When you can not rebuild, but you can reload. That was the significance of this year and being rewarded to go to play in the postseason.”
The road to this point was not easy.
K-State won 33 games in 2023, and Hughes thought that team was good enough to make noise in the NCAA Tournament. But it was one of the first squads to miss out on an invite. That snub fueled the Wildcats in 2024 and they won 35 games on their way to a Super Regional.
K-State understandably lost a great deal of talent from that team, but it was able to win 31 games this year (including a school record 17 in conference play) and return to the NCAA Tournament when some didn’t expect them to be here.
“We really had to revamp our entire lineup,” Hughes said. “We los two major components in our starting rotation. We lost arguably the best closer in the country, a first round shortstop, a center fielder, a catcher and our second baseman was a high draft choice. That’s a lot to rebuild.”
How did the Wildcats keep winning with so many new pieces?
Start with Maximus Martin. The junior infielder has led K-State with a .332 batting average since he transferred in from Georgia State. Bu the has done more than simply get on base. He has also hit 14 home runs and 18 doubles on his way to 54 RBI.
Add that production to Quinnipiac transfer Keegan O’Connor, who has hit 16 home runs on his way to 56 RBI, and the Wildcats found a potent one-two punch in their lineup.
On the mound, a starting rotation of Jacob Frost, Lincoln Sheffield and Michael Quevedo has led the way.
David Bishop has also supplied valuable leadership and a reliable bat as a returning player.
That should once again come in handy on Friday when K-State begins postseason play at 6 p.m. with a game against UTSA at Disch-Falk Field in Austin, Texas. The NCAA Regional pod also includes Houston Christian and Texas.
Beating the Longhorns will be a major challenge. But the Wildcats went on the road and eliminated Arkansas last season.
“Last year’s team, we didn’t have much experience,” Bishop said, “and those guys handled adversity great. They went down to Arkansas and they weren’t nervous. They handled the environment. So I think this year’s team will just do that much better to already have some of that experience and have some of the guys who led that team.”
High-energy reliever JJ Slack is eager for a repeat performance.
He wants to keep painting the right field wall at K-State’s baseball stadium.
“We went in there with a chip on our shoulder and we really had an underdog mentality,” Slack said. “We came out from the first pitch and just set the tone for what we were going to do the rest of that tournament.
“That’s kind of what we’re bringing to the tournament this year. We’re going to just put our heads down and go to work like we do every day.”
This story was originally published May 28, 2025 at 1:33 PM with the headline "‘Mark of a national program’: K-State baseball trending up ahead of NCAA Regional."