READY ON-DECK NOAH HSUE keeps perspective as his triumphant return is put on hold
B
BY BRIAN TOM
efore the outbreak of COVID-19 put college athletics on hold earlier this spring, Husky baseball player Noah Hsue was just starting to come into his own on the field. His story is not unlike many others at Montlake and, for that matter, around the country. He was just beginning to thrive when all the sudden, a world-wide pandemic stunted his promising season. The third-year sophomore from Mercer Island spent his first two years in the program finding his footing. He was initially wide-eyed when he stepped onto UW’s campus as a freshman in the fall of 2017. “I remember when I first showed up on campus about to start my first year and walking into the locker room and being like ‘Whoa, I have my name on one of these lockers.’ It didn’t feel like it was real,” Hsue reminisces. He would play in a combined 50 games over the 2018 and 2019 seasons and had flashed his potential with clutch hits, including a walk-off winner over Arizona as a freshman. But, Hsue had yet to find the consistency – or health – to sustain his success. That all seemed to have changed in 2020 as Hsue appeared to have turned the corner. When play was halted due to the coronavirus, he was leading the Huskies in numerous hitting categories, including average (.375), hits (18) and on-base percentage (.444). He was tied for the team lead in multi-hit games with four, including a career-best 4-for-4 in the Huskies' last outing, a 4-0 win over Utah Valley at Husky Ballpark on March 8. Hsue had finally arrived. “For the second season in a row, Noah was off to a great start and scratching the surface of the player he's going to become,” says Ronnie Prettyman, UW's hitting coach. “What makes him tough is his ability to handle the bat. He can bunt, he can run, and he sprays the ball around on a line. Those skills make it really hard to defend him, and defenses feel that pressure when he is in the box. I'm looking forward to seeing how dangerous he can be when he gets another full season under his belt.”
Continued on page 14
PAGE 12
GoHUSKIES
