How an interim coach established the culture behind Shocker baseball’s bounce-back season

Peering down from his hotel balcony on Sunday evening, Loren Hibbs took a moment to reflect on the journey the Wichita State baseball team has been on this season while watching his players blissfully juggle a hacky sack along Clearwater beach.

This season could have gone sideways in so many ways, starting with a coaching change just two months before the start of the season, so it’s a testament to the acumen of Hibbs and his staff of Mike Pelfrey, Mike Sirianni and Conor Behrens that the tranquil scene on Sunday night could unfold in the first place.

Wichita State baseball has yet to reclaim its spot among national powers, but Hibbs believes what the Shockers accomplished this season — in trying circumstances for the players and a staff working with an uncertain future — was forward momentum to that end goal.

Picked to finish in the bottom-half of the conference and coming off a 21-36 season, the Shockers racked up 30 wins and a third-place finish in the American Athletic Conference. Those achievements earned Hibbs the nod for AAC Coach of the Year, as the interim head coach became the first WSU manager to win such a distinction since Gene Stephenson in 1998.

On the night before WSU began double-elimination conference tournament play in the Florida heat with Tuesday night’s opening game against No. 6 seed Memphis, Hibbs reminisced on what has been a whirlwind season — one he hopes his team can extend this week in Clearwater.

“I couldn’t be more proud of our coaching staff and our players,” Hibbs said. “I think we’ve all helped each other get better, including our players and our staff making me a better head coach. Our players have bought in and done everything we’ve asked from them, whether it’s getting their schoolwork taken care of, treating people on campus the right way, getting their community service done, showing up to practice, getting work in on their off-days and representing their school the right way on road trips.

“When you have dealt with all of the stuff that our program has dealt with and with the uncertainty of what’s going to happen moving forward with our program after this year, there’s just a lot of positives.”

Hibbs thinks back to the December night, on the last day before the players returned home for winter break, when it was decided former head coach Eric Wedge would not return and the WSU players were unwavering in their support of Hibbs taking control.

Not a single player entered the transfer portal and not a single incoming recruit reneged on their commitment. On Jan. 15, the first day of practice, every single player was on time for the first preseason conditioning test. This past Sunday, after a grueling three-day series at UCF, every single player was on the bus at 9 a.m., ready to practice.

Turning around a program takes time. The foundation of a turnaround, in Hibbs’ estimation, is building the right culture. In that regard, this season has been an unmitigated success.

“We have some really good young people in our program who are extremely mature,” Hibbs said. “We have really made an effort as a coaching staff to provide them opportunities to grow as leaders. You can’t just say, ‘OK, Brock Rodden and Payton Tolle, you are the leaders.’ You can’t designate that. That has to evolve through putting them in positions to lead. And they’ve taken it and run with it.

“We’ve had a lot of championship teams over the years and the best teams we ever had had a point in every season where the players almost completely took over the program. And I can’t say enough good things about the job Payton Tolle and Brock Rodden and a whole lot of other guys in between have done with that this year. It’s just really cool to see the beginnings of a really good culture evolving for Wichita State baseball.”

Rodden turned down a six-figure paycheck after being drafted by the Oakland Athletics in last summer’s MLB Draft to play one more season for the Shockers. He improved his already gaudy numbers to the tune of a .360 batting average, .463 on-base percentage, .682 slugging percentage, 16 home runs, 61 RBIs and 59 runs, earning the AAC Player of the Year honor in the process.

Meanwhile, Tolle has compiled a strong case for All-American honors with a superb two-way season. He hit .319 at the plate with 13 home runs and 48 RBIs, while sporting a 9-2 record on the mound with a 4.57 ERA and 95 strikeouts in 82-plus innings.

With an almost entirely new lineup, WSU’s offense became one of the most explosive in the AAC. New arrivals in Garrett Pennington, Mauricio Millan, David Herring, Kyte McDonald and Jack Little all blossomed, while returners in Rodden, Tolle and Chuck Ingram improved on last year’s numbers.

The biggest improvement, however, belonged to the work Pelfrey did with the pitching staff, which lowered its staff ERA from 5.97 last season to 4.39 this season, which ranked second among AAC teams. Clark Candiotti (7-4, 4.87 ERA), Tolle and Grant Adler (5-3, 2.41 ERA) became a reliable weekend rotation.

The Shockers swept East Carolina at home and notched road victories over Oklahoma State and Kansas State for the first time in years. If its 10-16 record against Quadrant 2 and 3 opponents was flip-flopped, WSU would likely be in the conversation for an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament with an impressive 6-2 mark against top-40 RPI teams.

For the first time since moving to the American, the Shockers were in contention for the conference championship in May.

“We fell a little short (in the title race), but we gave ourselves a chance and that is a huge step forward,” Hibbs said. “This staff and these players will always have a special place with me. We put together a plan back in January and we followed the plan. I’m just so proud of this group.”

WSU has never fared particularly well at the AAC championship, winning two games only once (in 2019), a trend that Hibbs believes this year’s group can buck. The Shockers have the talent, the hitting and the pitching to advance from their pod, which includes Houston, Tulane and Memphis.

Spotty defense and question marks in the bullpen remain the two biggest issues facing WSU, but Hibbs says this team has the buy-in from players and coaches to make a run.

“We’ve got to throw strikes, like we have most of the year, and we’re going to need some production out of our bullpen at some point,” Hibbs said. “We really have to focus in every half-inning and lock in and play defense. We’re going to be playing on a fast surface, so if we just put the ball in play and then our athleticism will really show up and we end up scoring quite a bit of runs when we do that. We’re just focused on doing the basic stuff to the highest level we can and usually good things happen when we do that.”

American Athletic Conference baseball championships

Who: No. 3 Wichita State (30-23) vs. No. 6 Memphis (28-26)

When: Approximately 6:30 p.m. Tuesday

Where: BayCare Ballpark in Clearwater, Fla.

Streaming: ESPN+

Radio: KFH, 1240 AM (Mike Kennedy, Denning Gerig)

Probable starters: WSU’s Grant Adler (5-3, 2.41 ERA) vs. Memphis’ Luke Ellis (3-3, 4.42 ERA)