Quinten Borchardt '23 Recruiting Profile

Baseball in Belgium? Compared to the far more popular soccer or cycling, baseball is indeed not the most trivial choice for a young person like me to be competing in. But when I saw my dad play ball with his friends, I knew it: that's what I want to be good at! And that's how it all began, really. My dad would play games in the weekends and me and my brothers would tag along and be bat boys.

Fast forward to 2017, when I was in the team that represented the Flemish region of Belgium in the Little League Europe-Africa regional tournament where I played mostly infield positions. Our team didn't do too well, but it sure was a great personal learning experience.

In the summer of the following year, 2018, that team had grown into the Intermediate League. In that Europe-Africa regional tournament we finished in 4th place. I mostly played the 3rd base or short stop positions and pitched a few innings.

After the dismantlement of the Belgian Little League organisation, I kept practicing with our club team 'WBA Foxes' and tried out for the Belgian National U18 Team. That resulted successfully in a selection for the European Qualifier tournament early in July 2022, which we won! In the European Championship later in August, we stranded in 10th place. But again, a great learning experience.

When asked to highlight my strengths, I would mention:

• the accuracy of pitching

• number of stolen bases

• holding the team together when we're behind 

Baseball has been an integral part of my life ever since I can remember; I study hard to get a good GPA and work hard during practice to be a better teammate. I am thankful to the great coaches that have guided me in this journey and am looking forward to the opportunity of taking this journey to the next level.