‘Dirty Dozen’ set the foundation for Boise State’s first baseball season since 1980
Boise State baseball coach Gary Van Tol can’t hide his affection for the Dirty Dozen — the team’s original 12 players who sacrificed a season of eligibility to pave the way for the 20 new recruits added to the roster last fall.
“They’re our kind of guys. They’re here for the opportunity, and they wanted to be part of this,” Van Tol said last month. “It wasn’t about a full scholarship and guaranteed playing time. They wanted to be Broncos and they wanted to be pioneers and really lay the foundation to what we feel is going to be a special opportunity.”
Five Division I transfers and seven freshmen have been on campus since 2018, training and preparing for the Broncos’ first season opener since 1980 on Feb. 21 at Texas.
Van Tol said he didn’t have a set number of players he wanted to bring in last year. The 12 who ended up on campus just fell into place, and they’ve already made strides when it comes to establishing the program’s culture and expectations.
“It takes time to build something special, and we want to do it right,” Van Tol said. “We want to build this into a program that is competitive year in and year out.”
Included in Boise State’s transfers were two Idaho natives: Coeur d’Alene’s Michael Hicks, a power hitter who transferred from Portland, and catcher Cory Meyer, who hails from Pocatello and transferred from Washington State. Hicks should hit near the middle of the batting order, according to Van Tol, and Meyer is likely to open the season behind the plate.
Center fielder Geon Hyoung Kim transferred from Portland with a connection to Idaho. He’s from Jeonju, South Korea, but played at Timberline High in Boise.
Pitcher Gavin Gorrell transferred from Northern Colorado, and fellow righty Cameron Sommer joined after having already played on two college baseball teams. He transferred from Texas-Rio Grande after recording a 6-3 record in two seasons at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington.
In 2018, Gorrell appeared in eight games at Northern Colorado and made four starts, but the North Bend, Washington, native said the opportunity to be part of Boise State’s relaunch was too enticing to pass up.
“I wanted to jump on such a great moment in history, and Boise is just a cool place to play,” Gorrell said. “Gary has done a good job of bringing in guys who want to be competitive right away, and being competitive is just a mindset.”
Gorrell said he and true freshman pitcher Torn Montgomery played together briefly on the same travel team, and his younger cousin, Grant, is a true freshman infielder from Gilbert, Arizona, who Gorrell said committed to Boise State before he did. The cousins are living together and looking forward to playing in front of their grandfather, who Gorrell said has always been their biggest fan.
“Our grandpa has always come to all of our games, and now he gets to watch us play college baseball together, so that’s pretty awesome,” Gorrell said.
Gorrell only had a couple of connections to Boise State before joining the roster, but after spending the past year sweating together in the weight room and taking the field for scrimmages, there are no more strangers among the Dirty Dozen.
“You just slowly build relationships,” Gorrell said. “They’re not just teammates. They’re your best friends outside of practice.”
The transfers were going to have to sit out a year due to NCAA rules anyway, so the choice to give up a year of games may have been easier for them. It wasn’t so easy for the seven freshmen, who could have played right away had they gone elsewhere.
“It’s different because not a lot of people can say they’ve experienced what we’ve gone through,” pitcher Ike Buxton said. “It’s pretty crazy to have 11 guys next to you who have all sat out for a year to make this happen.”
Growing up in Ketchum, Buxton said hockey was his game, but a litany of injuries convinced him baseball was the better route. He played on the same travel team as fellow freshmen Jayce Bailey, who hails from Coeur d’Alene, and Kase Ogata, who is from Meridian and became the program’s first commit in October 2018. But Buxton didn’t show interest in college baseball until late in the recruiting process.
“If you would have told me six months ago that I was going to be a college baseball player, I would have said, ‘Yeah, right,’ ” Buxton said. “But being around the coaches and trusting them to have a plan while we spent a full year just practicing has been really rewarding.”
Outfielder Grant Kerry, infielder Matt Farman, pitcher Wes Harper and utility player Dawson Martin round out the freshmen in the Dirty Dozen, many of whom are now busy offering advice to the many new players preparing for their first season of college ball.
“Having that year to work and come together as a team was huge, especially for those of who have hadn’t played in college,” Buxton said. “Just having the experience of preparing for a season that never happened puts us a step ahead of where we thought we’d be at this point.”
