Sport Clubs News

Associated Students is proud to welcome Club Baseball as the newest addition to the Aztec Recreation Sport Clubs program.

Founded in 2016, Mike Podany and Matt Malconian began the club as a San Diego State Recognized Student Organization as a way to continue their passion for playing baseball.

“I grew up playing baseball and played four years in high school,” said Podany, “Then I came to SDSU and there wasn’t a club baseball team. So my sophomore year, I wanted to try and start the team myself.”

After reaching out to the National Club Baseball Association (NCBA), Podany found out that Malconian was also interested in starting the program at SDSU. The two connected and from there, started the process of creating the team by recruiting athletes and seeking acceptance in the NCBA. The new team was assigned to the Division II Pacific Region-Central Conference and in their first year, held a roster of 25 students. In their inaugural season, the team placed first in their conference with a record of 14-3. A loss in the regional playoffs ended their first season.

The following year, the team again earned first place in their conference with a 15-3 record and for the second straight year, advanced to the regional playoffs where they went 3-0 to qualify for the World Series in Pittsburg, Kansas.

The team entered the World Series as the fifth seed and won the World Series in just their second year as a team, the youngest NCBA team to do so and ended the year with a final record of 22-3.

After winning the World Series, the SDSU Baseball Club was promoted in July of 2018 to play Division I in the Southern Pacific-South Conference. In their first year as a Division I team, the team finished with a record of 6-9. In addition, the team started the process of pitching their team to be under the Aztec Recreation Sport Clubs program.

“It was always our goal to become an official club sport,” said Podany. “We thought that after winning the World Series, it was the perfect time to start putting together the presentation and pitch to the Sport Club Council that we would be a great addition to the Aztec Recreation program.”

The team was approved as an official Aztec Recreation Sport Club in May 2019.

“Now that we are recognized, we’ll be featured on the sport club website and be able to table at all the sport club events, which is really going to help with our recognition and help us to have more of a name on campus,” said Podany.

As they start their fourth year as a team and first year under the Aztec Recreation Sport Club program, the Club Baseball team is excited to get their season started and build on their past accomplishments.

“It was a super great time going to the World Series and winning the whole thing,” said President Jared Dawson. “We are definitely past that and it was a great memory. But now, we are playing with the big boys and unfortunately weren’t able to make the playoffs last year. It was a transition year but the ultimate goal is obviously to win everything and I don’t think that’s far fetched for us.”