The Hillsdale Club Baseball team poses for a photo after a game this fall.
Courtesy | Thomas Scherer

Hillsdale’s club baseball team joined the National Club Baseball Association this year and has already won best pitcher and best defensive player of the week awards within the league.

The team started in 2015, and has aspired to join the league ever since. 

“I thought that if we’re playing club baseball, we might as well try to get as legitimate competition as possible,” said Thomas Scherer, senior and president of Hillsdale Club Baseball. “The main thing for me was giving other people the chance to play as competitive baseball as possible.”

Freshman Collin Buckley said the NCBA is the official governing body of club baseball throughout the country. 

“Now we’re in the standings, there are stats available, and we’re officially a recognized team,” Buckley said. “We’re super thankful for the opportunity, and it’s great to be able to play baseball still.”

Scherer said the club wanted to attract freshmen coming out of high school baseball teams, and people were less likely to commit if the team only played a couple games a year.

“This is my fourth year playing,” Scherer said. “When I came here, we were a good club team, but we didn’t really have a ton of numbers. We played maybe two games my whole freshman year and one game my sophomore year.”

Outside the NCBA, it was difficult to schedule games. Most college club teams were already a part of the NCBA and only scheduled games with other members, unless something fell through in their scheduling, according to Scherer.

“There was the dream of joining the league, and we talked about joining for at least my first two years, but we never really went for it,” Scherer said. 

The team used to practice on the Field of Dreams, in Hillsdale, Michigan.

“It’s a dirt field, which means if it’s raining even a little bit, or has rained, it’s pretty much impossible for us to actually get a good practice in,” Scherer said.

Scherer works as student manager of the Charger baseball team and helped the club gain access to the Lenda and Glenda Hill Stadium and TFO Partners Field for practices and home games.

Since the team can now host games at the Chargers’ stadium as of this year, joining the league became a more concrete possibility.

In April 2025, the team played two doubleheaders against Adrian College, a member of the league, and won two out of four games. 

“Those were our first wins against club teams as far as I’m aware,” Scherer said. “After that, we thought we could definitely use the momentum to get into the league.”

Scherer said the next step for the team was getting money for home and away jerseys from the Student Federation. 

During the last Student Federation meeting of the spring 2025 semester, Scherer explained the situation and received $2,500 to purchase the required jerseys. The team earned enough money for the league dues on their own.

From there, Scherer said the process of joining went relatively smoothly. 

Like all new teams, Hillsdale joined the NCBA Division III in the fall of the 2025-26 school year and has the chance to work up to Division I or II depending on how the team performs. 

“We won one of our first two games in our first weekend,” Scherer said. “So that was our first official NCBA win which was a big one for us.”

The Chargers split a two game set against Oakland University this fall in their inaugural series as an official club team.

About a month later, freshman Jon Patten was named NCBA DIII National Pitcher of the Week and District IV – East Conference pitcher twice in back-to-back weeks.

“I just showed up, and played club baseball for fun,” Patten said. “The awards were really cool, really unexpected.”

Senior Matt Riehle also won NCBA DIII National Offensive Player of the Week.

“So we finished with three national awards in total,” Scherer said. “So I’d say that’s a pretty big success for us so far, especially in our first year.”

The team finished third in conference and 25th overall and is headed into its spring season.

They also held their opponents to an average of 1.17 runs per game, which is second best in the NCBA as a whole, and best in DIII. 

Adrian College will host the team’s first spring game March 28. Adrian is ranked third overall and first in Hillsdale’s conference. 

“We basically have to beat them in order to have a chance at winning our conference, so it’s going to be a very big game,” Scherer said. “Hopefully, we’re not too rusty. We’ve been practicing.”

The team practices three days a week during the national season. 

“Right now we’re doing Monday and Wednesday because that is when we can get into the Biermann to throw,” Scherer said. “So once it gets better out and we can use the field, we will start doing three days a week practices again.”