PEMBROKE — Ethan Baucom had to adjust to the change of playing baseball in college, like many players that enter a college program as freshmen.
Four years later, the benefits from the mindset he took is continuing to pay off for the redshirt junior slugger for The University of North Carolina at Pembroke baseball.
“When I got here as a freshman, there were guys here that were stronger than me that were seniors, and I didn’t like the fact that there was men on the team that were stronger than me,” Baucom said. “It kind of motivated me to get stronger than everybody. I wanted to be the strongest on the team. That’s been my main motivation.”
That mentality carried Baucom through his first year as a redshirt in 2016, and since has been an ironman with the program appearing in 133 of the Braves’ 141 the last three years.
That season sitting out provided the wake-up call for the Rockingham native and 2015 graduate from Richmond High School.
“Coming in, nobody wants to be a redshirt,” Baucom said. “It was really an eye-opener for me that I needed to get better. I needed to work harder. All of us were good in high school, the top two, top three best players on our teams in high school. Then I came here and everybody thinks that too, and that wasn’t the case. Stibel Aleman Saba played in front of me in the outfield that year and he could hit the crap out of the ball. It was a real big eye-opener that I needed to get stronger and get better at hitting.”
After two years as a solid bat in the middle of the order for the Braves in back-to-back NCAA Regional berths, Baucom is experiencing the best start to the season at the plate. Entering Friday’s Peach Belt Conference series against USC Aiken, Baucom leads the Peach Belt in home runs, with 13, and his 48 RBIs are 14 more than the next closest hitter in the league.
With Baucom as the catalyst behind his .333 batting average and on-base percentage of .429, the Braves lead the conference in runs scored at 261. That helps aids the pitching staff for UNCP that is in the bottom third of the league and is still looking to find consistency.
“I feel like I’m a big key in the lineup to set an example for the guys” Baucom said. “If I get a good hit off of them, it takes a lot of the pressure off (our pitchers).”
But carrying those types of numbers into pivotal Peach Belt Conference weekend series brings a lot of attention as well.
“It’s important because he’s driving in a lot of runs. For us, it’s important that Connor (Grainger) and Elijah (Helton) keep doing well because it’s not going to take long before teams start pitching around him,” UNCP coach Paul O’Neil said. “If there’s somebody in our lineup that you’re going to circle and say, ‘We’re not going to let that guys beat us,’ that’s the one that you’re going to circle. It doesn’t take a genius to look at a stat sheet and go this guys hits .350 and has 50 RBIs and 13 home runs.”
Such was the case last weekend against Georgia College at home. Baucom was walked three times in the opener against the Bobcats.
“This was probably the biggest weekend that I realized that teams weren’t going to let me beat them,” Baucom said. “They are going to make the rest of our guys show up and beat them. I’ve got to try and get on base for some of our guys because we’ve got some guys that can hit too.”
But even with seeing poor pitch selection, Baucom still was able to get his due. In the bottom of the first inning in game three of the series, the Braves’ outfielder sat on an outside breaking ball and took it to opposite field sneaking his 13th homer over the right field fence, hugging it inside the foul pole.
Baucom said that maturity has refined his pitch selection this season, and the bait that some pitchers have tossed to him to get bad swings or easy outs aren’t as appealing to him anymore.
“I’ve just listened to what Coach O’Neil tells me. Really it’s just pitch discipline, pitch selection swinging at pitches I need to swing at,” Baucom said. “In the past, I would get myself out a lot. I’ve stopped doing that this year, stop helping out pitchers out.”
Despite all the progress that Baucom has shown this season, already setting a new career-high in home runs in a season and now 10 RBIs off from tying her career mark from the 2018 season, the offseason training regiment last summer did not include baseball like most college baseball players. Instead, he spent more time in the weight room, where he has become a fixture after his eye-opening experience as a freshman.
“I work out a lot every summer that I’m off, but I’d probably say I worked out more this summer just trying to get stronger and everything,” Baucom said.
But the months away from baseball left the right-handed slugger feeling behind the ball when he came back to school in the fall. Baucom did work to get timing and the swing back to baseball shape, but also focused mentally on his approach stepping into the batter’s box.
“Last year, my problem was putting a lot of pressure on myself, getting into my own head, and this year I’m trying to stay out of my own way and know that I’ve got guys behind me that can hit,” he said.
Those guys around him in the lineup he’s putting more trust in are the ones that Baucom grinds on a daily basis with in the weight room, far beyond the mandatory two days a week with the team. That group starts with roommate and fellow outfielder Luke Jackson, who Baucom said he competes with to push each other.
“Me and my roommate Luke kind of always compete with each other and last year he beat me in home runs,” Baucom said. “It’s kind of determination. We also compete in the weight room with who puts up bigger numbers.”
With that effort in the weight room, Baucom has put up the numbers he has from the brute strength, and made himself a well-known player for opposing pitchers to be wary of throwing a hanging breaking ball or a fastball too close to the heart of the plate.
“He’s a really hard worker, and the one thing that separates Ethan from a lot of players is his physical strength,” O’Neil said. “He works really hard in the weight room. When he gets the barrel to the ball, it usually goes someplace pretty quick. If it gets on the right angle, it usually leaves the ballpark.”
And that has happened, 13 times and counting this season for Baucom.
