The day before Linn-Benton won the NWAC South for the seventh consecutive full season, sophomore utility player Aidan Dougherty sat down with the Commuter to talk about his baseball career, the Beaks’ 19-game winning streak, and Linn-Benton’s preparation for the NWAC Championship Tournament. The Beaks have a guaranteed postseason berth as a No. 1 seed as they prepare to compete for the NWAC title starting May 23 at Lower Columbia College in Longview, Washington.
How did you first get into baseball growing up?
My dad introduced it to me at a very young age. My older brother was always playing – I’d always go to his games and it just interested me a lot. My dad has a big interest in baseball. It’s just been a big part of our household growing up.
What’s the story of how you ended up at Linn-Benton?
I was originally going to Oregon State out of high school. And I went there originally in the fall of last year, my freshman year, and things didn’t work out. And then about halfway through fall I transferred over to LB and yeah, I’ve been there since.
Do you have a favorite memory during your time in the LB baseball program?
That’s a good question. There are a lot of good memories. If I really had to choose my favorite one, it was not one memory in particular, but all this year we’ve been having a lot of close games. And the amount of walk-offs we’ve had from dudes who, at the beginning of the fall, you would never have expected them to hit those and come up in those huge situations over and over again. It’s really cool to see every dude on the team do something cool and that’s probably been the thing I’ve enjoyed the most about this year: everybody’s doing something cool.
What is your major and what do you like to do outside of baseball?
My major is economics. And then things I like to do outside of baseball… I mean, baseball takes a lot of my time. I like to hang out with my teammates. We’ll go do barbecues or something. Me and my buddy, one of my roommates, watch baseball. I don’t know, just a lot of stuff to do with baseball [laughs]. In high school, I liked to get out and fish or kayak. I like to ski too. But in college, there’s just less time to do all that stuff.
The Beaks had a 19-game winning streak from mid-March to mid-April. What was it like being part of a team that was playing so well, so consistently?
I mean, honestly, that might have been some of the most fun baseball I’ve ever played. Just because it felt like no matter what was going on – we could go down three in the first – we all knew we were going to be in the game and we were going to probably win the game. And it sucked to see it coming to an end but man, that was some fun.
Between that winning streak and the recent history of this program, Linn-Benton baseball has high hopes for the rest of the season. How do you deal with those expectations?
I think as a team we’re doing a really good job of just taking it day by day. We know what we want to do and what we want to accomplish. But I think we know how we’re going to accomplish those goals – if we take care of business every day and do the little things right, everything else will play out how it should.
You’re a sophomore leader on this team and you have playoff experience. What advice are you going to be telling the younger players as LB baseball hits the tournament stretch to make a run for the NWAC Championship?
The best advice I would give to the younger guys would be: trust yourself and just try to think less – go out there and just let all the work we put in through the offseason and in the fall show. We’ve done the right things – we’ve worked super hard in the weight room and in the cages, we’re there for hours, and now it’s time to have fun and go out there and just compete our butts off. I would just go out there and tell them not to worry about anything else. Don’t worry about getting hits, coming up on the spot. You got to come up and just go out there and compete. Like, mindless competing.
You were first team all-NWAC last year. You’re top 10 in batting average in the NWAC this year. What are your personal goals as LB baseball finishes out the season?
I mean, honestly, my biggest goal would be to win. Win an NWAC Championship. I’ve never gotten to experience anything like that, I’ve never won anything that big. So, I mean personal/team goal would definitely be to win the championship.
What are your plans for life after LB?
I’m committed to play baseball at the University of Connecticut. So I’m gonna go do that and then I’ll look into doing the economics major. I might change it. I’m not too set on that. But I’m gonna try and play baseball as long as I can. That’s my goal.
Is there anything else that you’d like to tell our readers at the Commuter?
I don’t know, I just think this team is pretty special and we got something cooking pretty good here… If you have nothing to do, come out. Come watch.
