“Baz Magic,” as Arkansas Tech University head baseball coach Dave Dawson described it, came through when the Wonder Boys needed it most.
As a result of a series sweep of Harding University at Carl Baswell Field in Russellville on Friday and Saturday, Arkansas Tech is Great American Conference regular season baseball champion for the third time in the last five years. In terms of conference titles won, it is the most successful five-year span in the history of ATU baseball.
“I’m going to tell you…nobody wants to come in here and play us,” said Dawson while standing on Carl Baswell Field moments after the Wonder Boys clinched the 2025 GAC championship and improved their home record this season to 17-4. “We know where we’re at when we get here. The crowd’s always awesome. It was great today for Bash at the Ballpark. We have a different comfort level here. When we got back here, we knew that if we played well and stayed locked in we’d be in good shape. We did, and we made it happen.”
Dawson has served as ATU head baseball coach since 2010. He has more victories (479) and more conference championships (4) than any other baseball coach in Wonder Boys’ history.
When asked how Arkansas Tech baseball has arrived as a perennial factor in GAC baseball, Dawson spoke of culture.
“It’s our players…it’s the program…it’s the coaching staff…but it’s really the players,” said Dawson. “We’ve gotten to the point where I don’t have to work as hard. Our seniors teach our underclassmen, and our underclassmen buy in. And it comes down to pitching. We didn’t pitch great early in the year. There were a lot of nerves, but we got through that.”
The process of getting through that included overcoming a 1-6 start to the season. A series win against Southern Arkansas University Feb. 28 and March 1 got the Wonder Boys back in the fight, but they were swept at the University of Arkansas-Monticello the following weekend and they dropped a series against Henderson State University in early April.
At the close of business on April 7, Arkansas Tech was in third place in the GAC standings and two-and-a-half games behind league leading SAU.
The Wonder Boys responded by winning their final nine GAC games of the season. They scored nine or more runs in seven of those victories to slug their way into first place going into the regular season finale.
ATU starting pitcher John Gray took it from there, limiting Harding to one run over eight innings to lead Arkansas Tech to a title-clinching 4-1 victory over the Bisons.
The Wonder Boys will open GAC Tournament play at 1 p.m. Thursday, May 1, against Southeastern Oklahoma State University at David Allen Memorial Ballpark in Enid, Okla.
Live coverage of the GAC Tournament will be available on www.arkansastechsports.com.
Arkansas Tech is in a four-team bracket with Southeastern Oklahoma State, Harding and Ouachita Baptist University. If the Wonder Boys can emerge as the sole advancer from that bracket this weekend in Enid, they will return home to host the GAC Tournament championship series at Carl Baswell Field May 9-11.
That “Baz Magic” is waiting. The Wonder Boys just have to earn the opportunity to unleash it.
Tech Tidbits is a column written by Sam Strasner, ATU director of university relations and radio play-by-play voice for ATU football and basketball.
