The Pomona-Pitzer Colleges Sagehens, after reaching their first-ever Division III College World Series last year, have been predicted to win the conference regular season crown according to the 2024 SCIAC Baseball Preseason Poll, as voted by the league’s coaches.
The Sagehens enter the year as 2024 SCIAC Tournament champions, though they have not held the regular season crown since 2010. Center Fielder
JC Ng will shoulder the bulk of the offensive expectations after notching First Team All-SCIAC and Third Team D3baseball.com All-America selections. The leadoff man boasts 199 career hits including 36 doubles and 24 home runs with a .486 on-base percentage after reaching a high-water mark triple slash line of .424/.546/.641 last spring. Three other All-Conference selections in pitcher
Hannoh Seo, shortstop
Greg Pierantoni and 2024 SCIAC Pitcher of the Year
Jake Hilton will be returning alongside Ng. Pomona-Pitzer found itself ranked No. 8 in the Preseason D3baseball.com Top 25 poll, 10 spots ahead of the projected second-place University of La Verne Leopards.
The Leopards have won back-to-back regular season titles with records of 18-6 and 20-4 in conference play and will look to achieve the three-peat led by 2024 SCIAC Newcomer of the Year
Niko Urquidi and three other All-Conference selections. The rookie southpaw dominated conference hitters to the tune of 50 strikeouts (23 looking) in 45 innings while catcher
Nathan Perry and outfielders
Matthew Diaz and
Logan Reese contributed to holding the top in-conference run differential at +108.
One spot behind La Verne in the d3baseball.com Preseason Poll and predicted to finish third in the conference is 2024 SCIAC runner-up Claremont Mudd-Scripps Colleges. The Stags have finished in the top three in the final regular season standings each of the last two years, but will look to get over the hump behind D3baseball.com Preseason All-America First Team pick
Andrew Mazzone and and fellow All-Conference returners
Dillon Martin at second base and swingman
Hamilton Finefrock. Mazzone set a CMS record for home runs in a season with 20 while also compiling a .404 batting average and walking 33 times for a .509 on-base percentage to lead the team.
Coming in fourth just two points behind CMS are the receiving votes California Lutheran University Kingsmen, who have had arguably the most sustained recent success in a highly competitive conference, winning six of the last 12 tournaments and five of the last 12 regular season titles. The 2017 DIII national champions will look to get back on track after an off-year by their standards with Second Team All-SCIAC keystoner
Troy Anderson and workhorses
JJ Frazier and
Luke Wechsler. Frazier earned First Team All-SCIAC recognition after tossing 94.1 innings including five complete games with a 3.53 ERA while Wechsler compiled a 3.73 ERA and 85:24 K:BB ratio.
Behind the Kingsmen yet still coming in at No. 22 nationally are the Chapman University Panthers, who missed the SCIAC tournament last year for the first time since 2015, a span that saw them claim two regular season titles and tournament championships as well as their second DIII national title in 2019. Under the newly expanded field, they would sneak into this year’s field as the fifth seed for a one-game playoff into the double elimination tournament. Chapman collected three All-Conference accolades last season but will return none of them, meaning the weight will fall on returning second baseman
Austin Dudas and
outfielder
Josh Phillips, who is one home run away from breaking the program record after whalloping 23 in his first three seasons. The
University of Redlands welcomes back Second Team outfielder
Luke de Vries, the club's top offensive threat with a .382 average and .927 OPS, as well as former All-West Region star
Mark Kirkland after two years in Division I. The slugging first baseman hit .454 with a .632 SLG in his breakout 2022 campaign.
Whittier College’s two-way standout
Max Berber returns as the Poets’ top starter and forms a strong hitting duo with fellow senior
Nathan Sherman. Occidental College returns two of its top three offensive producers in outfielder
Jeffrey Cambra and infielder
Jackson Short. Rounding out the rankings, the Caltech Beavers also return their three top performers in outfielder
Kailen Hargenrader, and two-way infielders
Jack Fishel and
Cameron McNamee, who logged a .300 average in a breakout season.
Caltech, Occidental, Pomona-Pitzer, Redlands and Whittier all get their seasons underway on Friday, February 7 with the rest of the conference quick to follow. Redlands will host Whittier in the first conference matchup on opening weekend for both squads.
2025 SCIAC Baseball Preseason Poll
1. Pomona-Pitzer, 78 points (6 first-place votes)
2. La Verne, 65 pts (2)
3. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, 57 pts
4. California Lutheran, 55 pts
5. Chapman, 51 pts
6. Redlands, 37 pts
7. Occidental, 26 pts (1)
7. Whittier, 26 pts
9. Caltech, 10 pts
Follow the SCIAC on Threads (@theSCIAC), X - formerly Twitter (@theSCIAC) and Instagram (@thesciac) with hashtags #SCIACtion and #SoCalSoGood. Watch all home SCIAC games, matches, and meets online through FloSports: https://flosports.link/SCIAC