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    Bethune-Cookman head baseball coach Jonathan Hernandez had a sense of his team’s potential this season well before opening day.

    Bringing back the majority of a 2025 team that made an NCAA tournament appearance after winning the Southwestern Athletic Conference regular season and tournament titles, the Wildcats’ coaching staff added additional pitching depth to the roster, and Hernandez believed this year’s squad could compete with any team in the nation.

    “I felt like the guys felt like they left something on the table, and they wanted to be able to run it back,” Hernandez, in his seventh season as the Wildcats’ coach, told Andscape.

    It wasn’t until last month, however, that Bethune-Cookman caught the attention of the wider college baseball world, beating LSU and Florida in back-to-back weeks for the program’s first wins over ranked opponents since 2017.

    Vanquishing a pair of SEC foes put the Wildcats on the radar, but Hernandez is now focused on making sure his team is ready for postseason play; Bethune-Cookman is the No. 1 seed in this week’s SWAC tournament at historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama, hoping to earn an NCAA tournament bid and get another chance to make national headlines with an upset.

    “We’re just playing baseball. So like, as long as we play our brand of baseball, we’re really good,” fifth-year outfielder Sergio Rivera said. “When we do, no team can handle us. That’s our mentality, and just in playing the same game of baseball we’ve been playing since we were little kids.”

    Hernandez preaches an “opening day” mindset within the program, encouraging players to focus on the present rather than any results from the past. He said this approach removes the pressure from big moments and intense games, allowing his players to play free and stay composed.

    “We’ve earned every step of that respect that we’re starting to garner within our program, but I think that 0-0 mindset [is key],” Hernandez said. “No win is too big, and no loss is too low. We have an opportunity to learn from our losses, and that gives our guys an opportunity to grow and develop.”

    Two losses in particular served as motivation for much of the Wildcats’ roster over the offseason: the NCAA tournament defeats that ended their 2025 season.

    This year’s team returned seven position players who started more than 40 games of that 37-23 campaign, but Hernandez had to replace six of the 10 pitchers who logged more than 20 innings in 2025.

    The formula has worked, leading to a 37-18 overall record — the most regular-season wins of Hernandez’s tenure — as well as a 23-7 SWAC record that featured series wins against all 10 conference opponents en route to the league title.

    At the plate, junior outfielder Michael Rivera has led the way with a .410 batting average and 17 stolen bases, one of six Wildcats hitting at least .300 this season. Bethune-Cookman led the SWAC in runs per game (8.8), home runs (56) and stolen bases (146).

    The pitching staff, featuring returning starters Edwin Sanchez and Tanner Boccabello alongside a slew of junior college transfers, led the SWAC with a 5.09 ERA on the strength of a league-best 1.72 K/BB ratio.

    Bethune-Cookman's Sergio Rivera runs after hitting a pitch during a game against Bradley on Feb. 14, 2026, in Daytona Beach, Fla.
    Rivera, who received an extra year of eligibility thanks to the NCAA’s junior college waiver, wants to lead Bethune-Cookman to its first NCAA tournament win since 2017.

    Phelan M. Ebenhack / Associated Press

    According to Hernandez, the team’s success can be attributed to its intentional mantra of the three C’s — calm, cool and collected. The same mindset has allowed the Wildcats to lean fully into being overlooked competitors in nonconference matchups against Power 4 programs.

    “I had to talk to them as a whole and just let them know there’s no pressure on us. The pressure is all on the other side, right? Like, nobody expects for us to win, but we do [expect it], right?” Hernandez said. “We only need the 35 guys in our locker room to be able to have that belief.”

    Rivera and senior outfielder Darryl Lee incorporate the underdog label into their walk-up songs; Lee leads off games by stepping into the box to Lil Baby’s “Underdog,” and Rivera’s choice is “Gonna Fly Now” by Bill Conti, the theme song of the “Rocky” film franchise.

    The Wildcats point to a 12-day road trip in early April as key to their success this year. Sometime during the stretch of long bus rides and hotel breakfasts between Tampa, Florida; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Itta Bena, Mississippi, the team jelled.

    “It gave us the room to figure it out ourselves as a team, player to player. … It was a lot of, like, winning, losing, going home, thinking about it on your own, and then coming back with the team and trying to figure it out when you get to the field,” Lee said. “I think that that brought us together.”

    The road stretch, Hernandez said, helped build the team chemistry.

    “The road trip, I think, was very healthy for us. There was some things, obviously, that I was not happy about that I explained to the team,” Hernandez said. “The more time you spend with each other, the more confidence that guys are going to have, and the more trust that you’re going to have.”

    Entering the season, Bethune-Cookman knew a target would be on its back as the reigning SWAC champions. For Lee, playing in the conference for two seasons has taught him any team can win on any given day, and he and his teammates take pride in practicing hard every day to make sure the Wildcats stay sharp.

    “Last year, we had no pressure. I think that’s why we succeeded so much. Everybody knew Bethune was always at the top of the conference but said, ‘They can never get it done.’ They didn’t really expect for us to end up getting it done,” Lee said. “So now, I think this year, the SWAC is on notice.” 

    Veterans such as Lee and Rivera, who experienced the pain of last year’s 0-2 performance in the Tallahassee Regional of the NCAA tournament, returned this season with added motivation. And Rivera, who benefited from a waiver that gave former juco players an additional year of eligibility, views this season as one more chance to finish what he and the team have started.

    “It really left that bad taste in my mouth, those last two games in the regional. We lost knowing that we could have won them,” Rivera said. “I just want to get it done. … I just want to get the first win in a regional for the school since 2017 and hopefully make it to be the first HBCU program to make it to the Super Regional.

    “[We want to] just keep making history for this program and open doors for those who are going to come back after me.”

    The post Bethune-Cookman built buzz with Power 4 wins, but team’s focus now is on SWAC title appeared first on Andscape.

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