The 2024 college baseball season has been highlighted by outstanding power performances. Charlie Condon (No. 1 Draft prospect) has homered in half his games for a D1-leading 30 roundtrippers, while Jac Caglianone (No. 3) went deep in nine straight.
But the most outstanding single performance of the year has potentially come from a player who won't hear his name called in July: Oklahoma State sophomore Nolan Schubart, who homered a school-record four times in Tuesday's 21-6 win over Wichita State.
Of course, the only reason Schubart won't be drafted this year is because he's not eligible until 2025. The outfielder has already shown first-round abilities, and with more showings like this, he may cement a lofty status in next year's rankings.
Big power outputs are to be expected with Schubart, who earned a spot on the Golden Spikes Award preseason watch list. The 6-foot-5 slugger displayed that ability by homering three times in a game against East Tennessee State as a freshman. But this game was far more impressive on a variety of levels.
It's not just that the Michigan native went deep four times -- he did it in just six innings, thanks to the mercy rule. He even started the game with a two-run double before the real fireworks commenced.
Just eight days ago, Schubart changed his swing and it's quickly paid dividends. In working with Cowboys head coach Josh Holliday, he widened his stance to let the ball get deeper and enable him to shoot the ball into all fields rather than just pulling it.
"I was trying to find something that was a little bit more consistent in my load so I wasn't drifting or getting outside of myself," Schubart said. "I just widened it out last Monday. I've just been working on it and making sure that I have a good feeling every day with my load and I'm in a good spot."
In the five games since the adjustment, he's gone 14-for-18 at the plate with seven homers and two doubles, plus more walks (five) than outs.
"I feel like I can't really get beat anywhere unless I beat myself and try to do too much," Schubart said. "It gives me some room for error with the ball, so I don't need to have the perfect load or whatever it may be. But it allows me to have faith in my hands and really just trust them to work with my swing. It allows me to just be kind of free in the box and not have to worry about anything else, just winning each pitch at a time."
Schubart's all-field approach was apparent on Tuesday. After Oklahoma State batted around in the first inning, he hunted a first-pitch fastball and knock it out to left-center field. In the third, he pounced on a first-pitch changeup and pulled it to right. The biggest test came on his third homer, when he let a low-and-away fastball get deep and lasered it into the home bullpen in left. And in his final at-bat, he battled off a pair of sliders to knock a 3-2 fastball for his record-setting rocket.
Schubart was just the 15th player to reach this homer milestone since single-game tracking in the NCAA began in 2012 after Georgia Tech's Drew Burress also accomplished the feat on Feb. 28. Campbell's Henry Rochelle (five on March 30, 1985) and Florida State's Marshall McDougal (six on May 9, 1999) are the only D1 players to surpass Schubart's total. He recognized how rare this achievement was and felt proud to add another chapter to an already thrilling college season.
"It's been a pretty spectacular year of baseball," Schubart said. "What Charlie Condon's doing is pretty unreal. I don't think I've seen a hitter do consistently what he's been doing, honestly. ... And then Jac Caglianone, that's surreal to have nine games with homers in a row, and then he also gets on the bump and throws 98 [mph] from the left. It's pretty surreal to see that around college baseball and bring the attention to college baseball that it deserves, honestly."