Dylan Cotch '23 Recruiting Profile

The reason why I started playing baseball was the influence my parents and family had on me. From when I could remember my family was always involved with baseball, from watching the Brewers or Twins on TV to going to our town team or watching my cousins on the varsity team play at home or even having baby pictures with a baseball and a bat. I started with baseball when I was 5 with tee ball, at that age I would just look forward to having the juice bags and snacks after the game but when I started to grow up, I really realized what the game of baseball really was and how it should be played.  When I got older the game changed from fun and not caring who won to a game where coaches and parents would yell at any call the wasn't the "right" way. 

I really fell in love with the game when my travel baseball team went Mauston and stayed in a hotel for the weekend. I thought it was so fun to stay in a hotel with a bunch of my friends and play baseball. One of my favorite memories was winning the Gopher State championship for my 12U traveling  team! We were the first Osceola team to do so and made our coaches so proud. 

In my high school years of baseball, I didn't have the the opportunity to play my freshman year due to the pandemic. In my sophomore year, I was so ready to play and make up for the year I missed. I played a mix of varsity and JV and got the chance to go with the varsity team to sectionals. We ended up losing but the experience was amazing. Going into my junior year, I didn't know what my role was but going into the season my coaches made it clear that I would need to be one of our better pitchers. Going through the year I was playing very well and pitched in our sectional game (from the year before and watching the game happen) to be the starting pitcher! Being our ace pitcher through the year was a very good transformation. My coaches helped me so much and it was very encouraging to have coaches that knew baseball as much as they did, and have a great baseball team to win against our opponents. 

As I think about college I would like to grow as an athlete and continue to compete at a higher level.