With Beaver Baseball under way freshman catcher and designated hitter (DH) Evan Taylor is off to a fantastic start to his beaver career. On the first road trip of the season, to Omaha Westside High School, Taylor got off to a big start driving in multiple runs on multiple hits in the teams sweep of Hamline.

That hot start would not stop there as Taylor continued his hot streak into Tucson for the Beavers where he was named American Rivers Conference Player of the Week for the Beavers. During that week Taylor was able to go 17 for 35 from the plate which led him to a batting average of .486. Of the seventeen hits seven of them were for extra bases with three doubles, two triples, and two homeruns. He also drew four walks during the week with ten runs scored and nine rbis.

Taylor said that the main thing for him that clicked for him at the plate was his approach at the plate “I just tried to stay calm and stick to my approach as much as possible.” That approach has seemed to work well for Taylor as he has shown early that he belongs at this level of baseball. But according to Taylor himself he is not looking at it in that way. He looks at his early accomplishment of winning the American Rivers Conference Player of the week as a way to have his mindset be, “How do I keep playing at his level? Because that is how I continue to prove that I belong.”

When talking to Beaver Head Coach Steve Eddie he says “Evan has a unique skill set. He can afford to be aggressive early in counts and hunt his pitch, but he can also be a good hitter with 2 strikes. I think he figured that out during spring break where he was able to get a lot of reps in a short span of time.

So far this season the Beavers have been able to pull off some impressive wins but have also had to endure some pretty heartbreaking losses. But according to Coach Eddie those wins have been some of the more impressive things so far this season. “What I have enjoyed the most about this early portion of our season has been how we have managed to win a few games when we haven’t played very well. We aren’t a perfect team, yet we have won some games against good competition while playing some ugly baseball at times. We have a competitive group and I think it has shown throughout some of the comebacks we have had. Each week, we will continue to try to improve and strive to play better baseball and I think each player on our team needs to have that mentality, regardless of if they are a freshman or senior.”

When it comes to the goals for the rest of this season Taylor says, “I’d say the biggest goal for me and as a team is to keep winning games, playing well, and improving. When the conference tournament starts hopefully, we are playing our best games of the season.”