Wright State baseball: Raiders 'flying on all cylinders', claim eighth consecutive conference crown

May 10—FAIRBORN — Alex Sogard is determined to do things differently.

His Wright State baseball team has been winning the Horizon League regular-season title with such regularity that clinching the crown barely produces high-fives or fist-bumps anymore.

But after securing their eighth in a row over the weekend and seventh straight with him as coach, he wanted to make sure his players took time to appreciate what they'd done and felt a sense of achievement.

In the post-game locker room after run-ruling Northern Kentucky, 18-6, on the road Saturday, May 9, he lavished them with praise and made sure they took some bows. At least inwardly.

The result? Smiles everywhere.

"We're obviously fortunate, and when you win it — I brought up (senior third-baseman) Patrick Fultz has been here four years, and he doesn't know any different," Sogard said.

"But it's something I'm guilty of. I know I take it for granted. Obviously, that's the expectation here, and that's how it should be. But I've had some people reach out and give me perspective. Coaches and players go their whole careers and don't win a regular-season championship.

"I shared with them that I'm proud of their body of work and them getting after it."

They actually clinched it Friday afternoon despite a walk-off loss to NKU because Milwaukee, their nearest pursuer, also lost.

But they looked like champs in game two against the Norse.

JP Peltier and Keegan Holmstrom both homered and had six RBIs to lead the way. Holmstrom tops the league with a .372 average, but that was the first-baseman's first career homer.

The Raiders, who are 16-4 in the league and 25-24 overall, went into the series finale leading the HL in hitting at .293, in pitching with a 5.63 ERA and in fielding with just 30 errors in 49 games.

"We played really good in league. Because of the standard we've set for success, we haven't won overall as much as we'd like. We really struggled in non-conference — this year more than previous years," Sogard said.

"Our schedule is hard. It's been a challenging year. But we're playing our best baseball right now, which is what you want."

The Raiders play at Ohio State today, Tuesday, May 12 and then finish the regular-season season with a three-game series Thursday through Saturday with Youngstown State.

The conference tourney will be held May 20 through 23 at Nischwitz Stadium.

"Our defense has been outstanding all year. The core group we have is really athletic. They take pride in taking care of the ball," Sogard said.

"On the mound, we're starting to get into a really good rhythm and having more contributors. Offensively, it's been a funny year. We returned so many starters (six of their top seven hitters from 2025), but we haven't had them going all at the same time.

"The top half of our lineup has been quiet, and the bottom half shows up and vice versa. But the last few weeks, we've almost been firing on all cylinders."