Could Notre Dame baseball be better in 2022? Why players, coach say yes

Notre Dame said goodbye to its best power hitter. The Fighting Irish also lost the pitcher who appeared in more games in 2021 than any other on the roster. Those are two tough departures for any college baseball program to overcome.

Niko Kavadas and Tanner Kohlhepp were largely responsible for Notre Dame advancing further in the postseason than the program had since 2002. The Irish are going to miss Kavadas’ 22 home runs. They’re going to miss Kohlhepp’s 23 pitching appearances. Notre Dame wouldn’t have been one win away from the College World Series without them.

But Notre Dame isn’t lowering expectations because they’re gone. If anything, the Irish are elevating them.

“I want to win a national championship,” sixth-year pitcher John Michael Bertrand said. “I think we can do it here. We can bring back the powerhouse of Notre Dame baseball, and I think it can happen in the next year or two.”

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Historically, Notre Dame hasn’t ever truly been a powerhouse program. Last year was only the second time in program history the Irish advanced to a Super Regional. The Irish have also only been to the College World Series twice (1957, 2002). It’s rare air.

Still, Notre Dame fell on much tougher times in the last 15 years than it was used to in the early part of the century. That’s likely the era Bertrand had in mind with the powerhouse label. Diehard Notre Dame baseball fans remember it well. Coach Paul Mainieri took Notre Dame to an unprecedented eight straight regionals, four of which were held in South Bend.

Then he left for greener pastures at LSU. Quite literally; the baseball field isn’t snow-covered down there this time of year — or any other time of year. The Tigers don’t practice in an indoor athletic facility shared by other teams from track and field to lacrosse. They’re also accustomed to winning national championships; Mainieri won one in his third season on the job (2009).

There are those two words again. Bertrand mentioned them. Junior Jack Brannigan mentioned them. And to their credit, it actually made sense to use them in the same sentence with the name of their school for the first time in two decades. Notre Dame had a team genuinely capable of winning it all in 2021.

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Had the Irish not committed three costly fielding errors that led directly to a trio of Mississippi State runs in Game 1 of the Starkville Super Regional, Notre Dame would have not blown a 7-3 lead and would have won the game. And, likely, the series. The Irish won Game 2 in runaway fashion, 9-1. Mississippi State won Game 3, 11-7, and punched a trip to Omaha the Irish felt could have easily been theirs.

Oh, and Mississippi State went on to win its first ever national championship, too. Something that also could have belonged to the Irish. Those words — again. Always there, never going away.

“I try to put a good spin on it like, ‘Yeah, we lost to the national champs,'” Bertrand said. “But at the same time, you want to be the national champs. It’s a sour taste. But I think everyone uses it as motivation. We competed with those guys. We beat ourselves.”

“Everyone was happy with how last season went, but we know we were one win short,” Brannigan said.

Well, technically six wins short. That’s how many more it would have taken to win a title. Head coach Link Jarrett knows that. He also knows this year’s team, made up of many of the same players from last year’s, are better for barely missing out on the CWS. He said he doesn’t like his guys to look too far ahead, but it’s just fine to look back.

“Everybody involved in that probably had a moment they learned from,” Jarrett said. “I don’t want them to fester about it, but you do need to reflect on what that was like and what that felt like at that moment and how well some of those innings and pitches and plays went. There were a couple you’d have liked to have back, but the appreciation for every piece of a game of that magnitude is something you do want them to play with.”

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Jarrett said despite Kohlhepp leaving, he feels better about this pitching staff than he did about last year’s going into the season. He said the experience Notre Dame has among its position players is a reason for comfort and confidence too. Kavadas is the only regular starter who did not return. Key cogs like outfielder Ryan Cole and infielders Carter Putz and Zach Prajzner have all come back. And many more.

The pieces are in place for Notre Dame to make another run. The players from last year’s ACC Championship-winning squad are nearly identical, with a few additions in the form of graduate transfers and freshmen who could contribute right away. Jarrett is also building a Manieri-esque mystique about him. It’s no coincidence he was rumored to be in the mix for the LSU job this past offseason following Manieri’s retirement. The college baseball world knows Jarrett is a hot name in the profession.

The 50-year-old who has gotten off to a 45-15 start in two seasons (including a 13-game 2020 campaign shortened by COVID-19) signed a contract extension through 2026 in December. This is only the beginning of his tenure if he sees it through. Jarrett himself said he feels like he’s only been at Notre Dame for one year because of how abbreviated the 2020 blip was. If it only took one full season for him to do what hadn’t been done since 2002, then there’s no reason to think it was only a one-off.

“The confidence of the returning guys after what they were able to do last year and how close we felt like we were, there is a lot to be said for that,” Jarrett said. “They walk out with a little more understanding of what we’re doing and where we think it can take us.”

That destination is a five-letter word.