It was a wild first year at Kansas for KU pitcher Dominic Voegele, who earned various all-Big 12 and freshman All-American honors after his stellar season.
And it’s about to get wilder.
This week, Voegele will head to North Carolina to participate in the 2024 USA Baseball Collegiate National Team training camp, where he will be one of 56 college players from around the country competing for a spot on the 2024 Collegiate National Team.
Voegele, a 6-foot-2, 190-pound freshman from Columbia, Illinois just outside of St. Louis, was sensational in his first season with the Jayhawks.
The versatile right-hander went 7-2 on the mound with a 3.89 ERA in 81 innings pitched. He recorded 80 strikeouts and walked just 29 batters while allowing three earned runs or fewer in 12 of his 15 starts. His 7 wins tied for third in the Big 12 Conference and he was also fifth in ERA, seventh in opponent batting average and seventh in innings pitched during Big 12 play.
Those numbers, along with his dominance on Saturdays for the Jayhawks, earned him several postseason honors, including Big 12 Freshman of the Year, second team all-Big 12 and Big 12 all-freshman team.
Voegele also became the first Jayhawk to earn first team freshman All-American honors from the National College Baseball Writers Association and the first KU player to earn freshman All-American honors from Perfect Game, which named him to their second team.
One of the things that served Voegele well during his stellar freshman season was the way he approached each start and each day of preparation that led up to it.
“I think most of all it’s just being in the right head space and staying confident and not getting cocky about it,” he told R1S1 Sports earlier this year. “I’ve always been pretty calm and relaxed out there. I don’t show too much emotion. I kind of just keep it mellow and keep it all to myself.”
That approach likely will help him on his quest to make the collegiate national team, as well.
The 56 training camp invitees will compete in a Stars vs. Stripes intrasquad series at the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary, North Carolina, on Wednesday and Thursday. USA Baseball will then name the 2024 Collegiate National Team International Friendship Series and Summer League Tour rosters on Saturday, following the conclusion of training camp.
That group will represent the United States in an International Friendship Series against Chinese Taipei from June 29-July 3 and a Summer League Tour against select teams from the Appalachian League and the Coastal Plain League from June 29-July 2.
Both summer tours will be played at baseball parks throughout North Carolina.
In case you missed our story about how Kansas found Voegele in the first place, here’s a look back at how the 20th-round pick of the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2023 MLB draft made his way to Lawrence in the first place.
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