CORVALLIS, Ore. — As a chilly spring rain fell last June outside of Oregon State's Omaha Room, where College World Series trophies greet visitors before they perform their postgame media obligations at historic Goss Stadium, San Diego baseball head coach Brock Ungricht wasted no time in summarizing the impact of the Toreros' most successful season in more than a decade.

"It was huge to show people what we're about….we're not going away, we're gonna be here," Ungricht said that evening after a whirlwind week that saw his team take down perennial power Vanderbilt at the oldest ballpark in college baseball. "I think it definitely puts the brand back on the map."

Back on the map, indeed. For the first time since 2013, when Fowler Park opened and Kris Bryant patrolled the venue's third base line, San Diego found itself back in an NCAA Regional and earned a win. It got there by sweeping its way through the West Coast Conference tournament in stunning fashion and hoisting the trophy in Stockton for the first time since that same year. Thirty-seven wins were USD's most in nearly a decade. "One Game Better," the program's rallying cry last season after finishing a victory shy of the postseason in 2021, can be filed under "Mission Accomplished."

"Now we have a new expectation of where the program is, and where it's going," Ungricht added back in June. "I told the younger guys, it's their turn to carry the torch, and run with it. I think next year, in 2023, we're gonna be ready to rock and roll."

A LITTLE OVER EIGHT MONTHS after its head coach dissected his first season at the helm with the Corvallis media, San Diego remains firmly on the proverbial map, and appears poised to build off its dynamic 2022 campaign. D1Baseball.com, the sport's leading publication, labeled year one of the Ungricht era as an "unmitigated success" before picking the Toreros to win the WCC and tabbing junior slugger Kevin Sim as its preseason player of the year within the conference. With four first-place votes, the league's coaches picked San Diego second and selected Sim and fellow junior Jack Costello for All-WCC Preseason Team honors. Facility upgrades at Fowler Park abound, including a new batter's eye, video board, and outfield wall for the venue, which will celebrate its 10-year anniversary throughout the 2023 season. Expectations, both internal and external, have ratcheted upwards.
 

"I think the biggest thing is just staying consistent in what we do everyday," Ungricht said of his team's approach to a new season. "The goal stays the same. Our goal is to win the West Coast Conference, and that does not change."

Back in pursuit of a second consecutive WCC title are 17 returners, including 2022 All-WCC Honorable Mention Ryan Robinson, 2022 All-WCC Freshman Team selection Ryan Kysar, and 2022 All-WCC Tournament Team selection Ivran Romero. Toolsy center fielder Dustin Allen, a hero in the Toreros' wild win over San Francisco in last year's conference tournament, is back as well. All-around athlete Angelo Peraza, who was seemingly always in the middle of the action in 2022, is poised for a big junior year after batting .256 with 31 runs scored and 24 walks as a sophomore.
    
"The first feeling that came to my mind (at the end of the 2022 season) was, 'Heck yeah, we've got guys coming back like Romero and Costello,'" Ungricht described. "Guys that are gonna know what it took, the road map to get to the postseason."
    
Joining that now-experienced group on the 2023 roster are 12 freshmen and seven transfers from the portal, including infielder James Arakawa (Pacific), catcher Andrew Semo (Fordham), infielder Ryan Ward (Arkansas), outfielder Gabe D'Arcy (Arkansas), first baseman Max McGwire from Oklahoma (yes, that McGwire), Jack Bunnell (Washington), and two-way player Austin Smith from nearby UC San Diego. After leading the WCC in nearly every offensive statistical category last spring and returning the likes of Sim and Costello, prowess at the plate figures to be a strength for the Toreros once again in 2023 — especially with their new additions from across the country.

"It's one of the best and most explosive offenses that I've ever pitched against — this being my fifth year in college," said Robinson, who posted a 2.70 ERA with 45 strikeouts a year ago as a redshirt junior. "I've been around a lot of programs and a lot of offenses, and this is by far the most versatile, one through nine."

On the mound, both the 6-foot-6 James Sashin and Romero have stepped into the rotation from the bullpen, joining graduate student Garrett Rennie, the staff's presumed ace who's back for one last ride after securing an elusive sixth year of college eligibility. Sashin, a former walk-on, is assuming the Friday night job in the season opener against Nebraska following a transformative offseason in which both his velocity and command trended upward. Romero will look to build off a successful season as a reliever in 2022, one that saw him post a 2.53 ERA in 46.1 innings pitched before earning WCC All-Tournament Team honors. And Rennie, who started each of the Toreros' first eight Friday night games last season as part of 11 total starts (15 appearances), will provide valuable experience and stability. Minus the loss of Romero to the starting rotation, nearly all of the Toreros' high-leverage bullpen weapons are back for 2023 as well, including the fiery (and at times, unhittable) Conner Thurman.

"We're gonna learn and grow together as a pitching staff," said Romero, a San Diego native. "There's not one player that's going to lead us this year on the mound. It's everyone together, and that's what's gonna make us a powerful group."

A YEAR AGO, USD began its 2022 campaign with a program-record 11 consecutive home games to begin their schedule, welcoming Oregon, UNLV, Fresno State, Dallas Baptist, and UC San Diego to Fowler Park over a tough 19-day stretch before finally hitting the road on March 11 with a winning record under their belts. Though the Toreros kick off their 2023 slate of games with seven straight at home, it'll be what they do on the road this season that invites a second glance at the schedule page. Following its season-opening homestand, San Diego will embark on an 11-day, nine-game, four-city, three-state, 3,691-mile road trip that will comprise the majority of their 2023 non-conference schedule. The Toreros will play their first road games of the season at Oregon (Eugene) from March 2 to March 5 (four games), then continue north for a midweek matchup with Oregon State in Corvallis on March 7. Both the series against the Ducks and the game against the Beavers will represent a rematch from last season for USD. San Diego took three games out of four from Oregon at Fowler Park to open their 2022 schedule (February 18-21), and fell to then-No.4 Oregon State at Goss Stadium by a 12-3 margin as part of the 2022 NCAA Corvallis Regional (June 4). After their stint in Oregon, USD will head south for three games in Fort Worth, Texas against TCU at Lupton Stadium. One last away contest will await the Toreros when they finally return to California on March 14 — a Tuesday night matchup at UCLA. A staggering stint on the road, even by professional baseball standards. But for Ungricht, it's a necessary journey, both for RPI, and for more intangible purposes.
 

"If I'm gonna talk to our guys about being confident and being tough on a day-to-day basis, you have to put your money where your mouth is," Ungricht said. "So with a schedule like that, it's like, 'Okay, I believe in you guys, you guys believe in each other, let's go out there and see what we can do on the road.' If you want to be the best, you've got to beat the best…and you gotta learn from your losses too. You can grow from that, and it helps prepare you for postseason play." 

The ever-tough West Coast Conference will await in late March, beginning with Pacific at home. Other matchups with WCC foes at Fowler Park include Pepperdine (March 31-April 2), Portland (April 14-16), San Francisco (April 21-23), and BYU (May 4-6), with road trips to Santa Clara (March 24-26), Gonzaga (April 6-8), Loyola Marymount (April 28-30), and Saint Mary's (May 12-14). 

"We're gonna go win each pitch, we're gonna go win each inning," said Costello, who helped his team topple Gonzaga last spring in the WCC Tournament Championship with an extra-innings home run. "We'll count it up at the end and look at the scoreboard."
EARLY LAST MONTH, as the calendar began inching closer to college baseball season, the Toreros boarded a bus and headed for Naval Air Station North Island. After crossing the Coronado bridge, they arrived at an aircraft hangar in full uniform, complete with bats, helmets, gloves, and catcher's gear, a well-timed favor having granted them access to the space for a preseason video shoot — a piece to be played on the program's brand new video board. Large doors slowly swung open after the Toreros entered, revealing a flight deck filled with Navy helicopters on a sleepy Sunday afternoon, Point Loma looming large in the background.

As the camera crew set up tripods and lights, Costello and his teammates spilled out onto the tarmac and began playing catch, killing time before an extensive, three-hour production that served as a reward of sorts after an offseason filled with both community service and long hours of practice. One that — off-the-wall photoshoots aside — left them feeling well-prepared to defend their conference title.

"That's the task at hand right now," Costello said. "The goal is to go win a West Coast Conference championship, and that's what we plan to do."

As the third baseman looked on and the photographer snapped away for some behind the scenes shots — capturing photos that would later amass more than 42,000 likes on Instagram — a helicopter lifted off, putting a temporary pause to the shoot as the rotors whirred to life. Players squinted as they craned their necks to watch it ascend and turn toward the Pacific Ocean before disappearing into the distance, the balmy San Diego sunshine on their faces a far cry from the blustery Pacific Northwest weather in which their head coach proclaimed the program to be "back on the map" last June. For the team down below, set to take flight on its most anticipated season in nearly a decade, perhaps it served as a fitting reminder.

That for San Diego baseball in 2023, the sky's the limit.