Submitted Photo/Oral Roberts Athletics Hudson Hart, now a member of the Hot Tots, pitches for Oral Roberts earlier this season.

When Marc Rardin was named the baseball coach at Western Kentucky University last year, it left Hudson Hart with a decision to make. One that would land him at both the pinnacle of college baseball and ultimately in Minot with the Hot Tots.

Hart originally committed to Iowa Western Community College because of Rardin. After all, in the twenty years Rardin served as coach, the Reivers made twelve JUCO World Series appearances and won three NJCAA Division I National Championships. He left the program with 934 career wins.

So, it was only natural that Hart would want to play for a coach of that caliber.

“After he left, I was looking for something else,” said Hart, who has played baseball his whole life. “I also played basketball and football, but I quit those in middle school. I just focused on baseball because that’s where my most love for sports is.”

He pitched two summers with the Nebraska Prospects, and last year, a coach of the team reached out to Oral Roberts University.

Hart ended up committing on August 3, just weeks before the start of school.

As the only freshman on the Golden Eagles roster, Hart didn’t see a lot of action during the season. In 4.1 innings of work, he gave up six runs (five earned) on six hits, while walking six and striking out four.

He posted an ERA of 10.38, although that number is a bit misleading. In his Oral Roberts debut against Dallas Baptist, Hart gave up three runs in 1/3 of an inning. In three of his final four outings, he didn’t surrender a single earned run and substantially lowered his season ERA in the process.

“I was one of the dudes who when we’re up or down eight, I would go in and save innings for the other pitchers,” said Hart. “I just never really got a chance because everyone else was doing amazing.”

Nonetheless, Hart expects an expanded role next year, as the Golden Eagles are losing a number of pitchers to graduation.

“They said I’d have something like a Dalton Patten role [an Oral Roberts teammate], where he would come in with no outs and the bases loaded. He would just kind of do his thing to get us out of the jam,” said Hart.

After winning the Summit League’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, Oral Roberts turned their baseball cleats into the proverbial glass slippers as this year’s Cinderella, becoming just the third regional No. 4 seed to advance to the College World Series (CWS).

And as is often the case, Cinderella was forced to walk a tight rope to get to the ball. In the Super Regional, the Golden Eagles lost their first game to Oregon. With their season on the line and trailing 7-6 in the bottom of the ninth, Justin Quinn hit a walk-off single to score two runs for an 8-7 win.

“It was a pretty crazy regional experience with how the games played out,” said Hart. “We didn’t lose in the regional, and then up in Eugene, we lost our first game on a walk off, and then we won our second game on a walk off.”

Oral Roberts won the third game 11-6 to advance to its first CWS since 1978.

Hart grew up in Gretna, Nebraska. The town of six thousand people is around twenty minutes southwest of downtown Omaha, and as long as he can remember, Hart and his family would make the pilgrimage to Charles Schwab Field for the College World Series.

Since he was the only local player to make it to Omaha, Hart became somewhat of a media darling during the tournament, and he discussed what it was like trying to tune out the noise.

“One thing that is good about our team is that we try not to pay attention to the noise. Coach will give us five minutes to kind of look at the noise, and after that, we focus on ourselves and get back to work.”

“It’s been really good that we keep each other accountable and make sure no one is getting caught up in it.”

If there was one thing Hart could change about his freshman year, it was that as a pitcher, he was left out when it came to the squad’s signature gummy worms.

“The pitchers don’t get any, which kind of stinks,” said Hart. “If you get a base hit, then Jimmy Turk (an assistant coach) would give you a Twin Snake. I do kind of wish pitchers were able to get some, but yeah, you just have to get a base hit.”

The tradition originated in 2021 on a bus ride from Minneapolis to Fargo, when players began singing along to the viral TikTok “Sea Shanty” song. Eventually, everyone started acting like pirates and Turk decided players should get treasure in the form of the Twin Snakes.

Thus, a tradition was born where every time a player gets a hit, Turk gives them a gummy worm when they reach first base.

After defeating Texas Christian University in their opening game, Oral Roberts lost to Florida, 5-4. Then the Golden Eagles faced a rematch with TCU in the elimination bracket, where they fell 6-1 to end their season.

That’s when the Hot Tots entered the picture.

“Our pitching coach Pete Horner actually has a really good relationship with the coaching staff over at Oral Roberts, so we wanted to reach out knowing the continued success that program has, and obviously they had a great season this year,” said Hot Tots head coach Mitch Gallagher.

“But I think regardless of the success they had, that’s a program that we want to continue reaching out to because of the consistency they bring, as well as the quality of kids,” Gallagher added. “They’ve also got a lot of talent in their conference that definitely prepares them for this level.”

Hart’s main goal during his time with the Hot Tots is to improve his pitching mechanics, as well as pitching quality innings against college competition.

Playing professionally is currently Hart’s primary career goal, but if that doesn’t work out, the sports management major doesn’t plan on moving far from the game.

“If I don’t go pro, then I would like to become a GM of any team. Any sport really,” Hart said. “I would like to stay within baseball. But if that also doesn’t happen, I would just like to do something in sports. I just love sports too much where I don’t think I could do anything else.”