MONTGOMERY, Alabama – The 2023 baseball season began with such high hopes for Old Dominion. The Monarchs won 21 of their first 26 games and were ranked among the top 35 in the NCAA RPI.
But injuries, the team's relative youth and inexperience and resulting mental mistakes, and then hitting the meat of their Sun Belt schedule, all took their toll. Since early April, ODU (32-22) has lost 17 of its last 27 games and enters the Sun Belt Tournament today at Riverwalk Stadium as the tenth seed.
The Monarchs are scheduled – weather permitting (rain is forecast much of the day) – to take on No. 7 James Madison at 4 p.m. today (ESPN+ TV, Fox Sports 1310 radio). A victory would send the Monarchs into the eight-team double-elimination round and a 5 p.m. date Wednesday with Sun Belt regular-season champion Coastal Carolina.
A loss would end ODU's season.
Given all that, why is the team that traveled 750 miles from Norfolk to Montgomery on a luxury bus over the last two days so upbeat and full of cheer?
The Monarchs stopped Sunday in Charlotte, where they practiced at Charlotte, and then practiced Tuesday afternoon at Auburn. The optimism was palpable and the workouts vigorous but cheerful.
This is clearly not a team that plans an early exit.
"We can win the tournament," said Kyle Edwards, a sophomore from Virginia Beach.
"No one is happy about losing, but I think we've played in so many different types of situations, that there's nothing we haven't seen, and nothing we haven't had to go through. We have a lot of experience to go into this tournament and really do some damage."
After a slow start this season, Edwards is one of the reasons why ODU fans should have hope. He has banged out 18 hits and is hitting .461 in his last 10 games.
Two weeks ago, in a stirring come-from-behind victory at JMU, the diminutive Edwards (5-foot-10, 175 pounds) pounded out a three-run home run and ended the game on a double play in which he caught a fly ball in left field and threw out a runner at first.
Edwards is playing his best baseball and overcame some adversity to do so.
As a freshman, he was called upon to start when shortstop Tommy Bell and second baseman Chris Dengler went down with injuries. He fielded well – coach Chris Finwood said he's one of the team's best fielders – but did not hit well. He finished with a .158 batting average.
This season he lost the starting job at shortstop to freshman Alex Bouche and did not play much early-on. But then injuries to other players won him a spot back in the lineup – in the outfield and infield – and he leads the team with a .345 batting average. He also has five home runs and 12 stolen bases.
Although he played the outfield in high school, he'd never done so in college until this season.
"He's started to figure things out," Finwood said. "He's not swinging at balls out of the strike zone and sometimes it takes some experience to figure that part out.
"He's doing a better job of hitting balls that are strikes and getting them in play. Even though he's not a big guy, the ball jumps off his bat. He's wiry, but he can really drive the ball."
Raised by a single mom, Edwards moved around a lot as a child. His mother, Dawn Jackson, spent 18 years in the Marines, and managed to defend our country while being father and mother to her children. The family moved five times before settling in Virginia Beach.
Academics was important to her, and she transferred Edwards from public school to Cape Henry Collegiate his sophomore year to challenge him academically. After two seasons there, he transferred to Cox High School, where he graduated in 2021.
Edwards was recruited by a lot of schools, but by the time he entered the seventh grade, he said his dream was to play at ODU.
"I just got my eyes set on ODU and came to as many possible camps and talked to the coaches as much as I could," he said. The summer between his freshman and sophomore seasons, he committed to ODU.
"I loved the coaches and the school," he said. "But a large part of the reason I wanted to stay at home is because I'm a family guy. My mom would be able to see me play. And it would give me a chance to see my younger sister grow up."
Edwards played with the Tidewater Drillers through much of his career and credits the coaches there with being mentors. Edwards is a physical education major and wants to be a strength and conditioning coach. He credits Chase Kyriacou, strength and conditioning coordinator at Beach Fitness & Performance, with setting him on that career path.
But his best mentor, he said, was his mother. As the son of a Marine, Edwards was raised with a good bit of discipline.
"She was so strict," he said. "She made me do a lot of things that I didn't like."
Including cutting his hair short.
"I had a lot of buzz cuts growing up," he said with a laugh.
"But now that I'm older, I understand why she was so strict. It was to make me a better person. I'm so grateful for everything she taught me.
"Most of my life, it was just my Mom and me. She kind of taught me everything. She was my world, she was my rock."
She led by example when it comes to education. After leaving the Marines, she got her teaching certificate and now teaches math at Norfolk's Booker T. Washington High School.
"She's an amazing person," he said.
So, Finwood said, is Edwards.
"Kyle is is an energy giver," Finwood said. "He's not the guy who's sucking energy out of the room. He's always giving energy.
"I really appreciate that. Those guys are rare these days. They're the exception. I appreciate his zeal, his passion. He's a guy who's had to go through a lot and for a while, he struggled.
"But he's stayed the course. He never flinched. We're really all so proud of him.
"He's still got his best days ahead of him."
Contact Minium at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
Minium: Kyle Edwards Overcame Adversity in Life and on the Field for ODU Baseball Team
