Wayne State College’s baseball team has found a new star in the making with their Senior Nate Cunningham.
The shortstop is leading his team in all of the hitting categories, including hits, RBIs, home runs, triples, doubles and batting average. Even with all of those stats, his impact off the field is just as important to his team.
Cunningham took over the everyday shortstop position this season for WSC after not starting a single game there last year.
“It has been a really cool process, seeing the hard work over the last couple of years really pay off,” Cunningham said. “I knew I was ready for this opportunity, and it’s all about having the confidence to go out there and do it and knowing that I belong out there.”
That same confidence was something that Cunningham struggled with early in his college career. He was always an everyday guy during his high school career at Elkhorn North, but he said that when you get to college you can get hit in the face with the reality of the new situation.
“You find out that you’re not the best player on the team anymore and realize that you’re the young guy again,” Cunningham said. “I am the bottom of the totem pole, I have to start over, so I think I had to take that step back early on.”
One of these moments came during Cunningham’s sophomore season, during a time at which he was not playing a ton for the Wildcats.
“It was all about understanding that if I’m not ready, I’m still going to try and be the best teammate I can be and step into whatever role the team needs,” Cunningham said. “I am going to work hard every day in practice and get better every day by working on my swing and my fielding.”
WSC Baseball Head Coach Alex Koch said that his staff always knew Cunningham had the skillset that they wanted, he just ended being behind a three-year starter at shortstop in Quinn McCafferty.
“I’ve got nothing but good things to say about Nate, especially in the era of the transfer portal,” Koch said. “A guy like that who only started a third of our games in all three prior seasons, it would have been easy for him to leave. He stuck around, showed all of the hard work and it’s all coming together for him.”
For Cunningham, this work started to pay off during his junior year at WSC where he made 15 starts throughout the season. He said that over the last two years, opportunities kept presenting themselves, and he made sure to take advantage of those moments.
“I have always prided myself on working really hard and getting a bunch of reps in,” Cunningham said. “I am a little bit of a perfectionist which kind of comes back to haunt you in baseball, but having those tendencies has helped me in the practice setting.”
Now as a senior leader on the baseball squad, Cunningham’s hard work ethic sets an even bigger example for the younger players on the team.
“It’s great to be the guy that leads by example this year,” Cunningham said. “Being a leader in the clubhouse this year has been a lot of fun. It is something that I have wanted to do, and I’m glad that it’s paying off.”
Coach Koch said that Cunningham’s improvement as a leader has been tremendous, and he could not be more proud of his senior.
“He can get vocal,” Koch said. “But he is a quieter and very intelligent ball player, but more than anything he is just a lead-by-example guy. He is going to go out and do things the right way all the time.”
Even with his success now, there was a point in time for Cunningham where baseball was not his number-one priority in sports.
“Honestly in high school I wanted to play basketball when I got to college, but I was just not big enough or athletic enough and that is what it is,” Cunningham said.
Early in his high school career, Cunningham said he just played baseball for the fun of it. He said that he was always super skinny and undersized compared to everyone else.
It wasn’t until his junior year of high school, when one of his coaches asked Cunningham if he had thought about playing baseball in college.
“I told him not really, but it would be really cool to play in college and have that opportunity, but it didn’t really hit me until then that this could happen,” Cunningham said.
That summer, Coach Koch got the chance to see Cunningham play and had him come up to Wayne on a visit.
“You could always see the athleticism, and I love recruiting multi-sport athletes,” Koch said. “I think they turn into being some of the best baseball players out there.”
From there, it was a done deal for Cunningham. He committed to WSC baseball and has not looked back since.
“It turned out to be a great decision to pursue this, and I have had a lot of fun here, and made a lot of connections that I will cherish for the rest of my life,” Cunningham said. “There has been a lot of guys that I have played with for three to four years that I will be friends with forever.”
As for Cunningham’s basketball side, he still keeps up with the game and gets some shots up whenever he can. He said that it is a great way to keep your body moving and loves the competition that it brings out.
“I always joke with our guys that I don’t think anyone on our team could beat me one on one,” Cunningham said. “Either way, I am glad it worked out like this, but basketball was always a big part of my life, and I keep up with it still.”
WSC baseball is sitting at 16-9 on the year with a conference record of 8-4 so far this season. They will look to continue their early success with Cunningham’s help throughout the rest of the year.
“I think this team is really special,” Cunningham said. “We have a good mix of some pretty elite pitchers on our staff, and we have a pretty old defensive unit. I think we are senior led, and I think there is a lot of confidence that comes with being the older guys. We have a lot of experience under our belts, and we all know that we belong in this spot.”
