Team Cohesion, Hard Contact Major Keys for Brainerd Baseball in 2025

Brainerd baseball has quite the illustrious history, touting 13 state appearances coupled with two state championships in the program’s history. However, the Warriors have fallen on hard times in recently memory and are six years removed from recording a winning season.

But now, led by Brainerd baseball alum and second-year head coach Tom Fairbanks, the Warriors are looking to reach prominence once again through prioritizing consistent hard contact, minimizing unforced errors, and collectively staying on the same page.

“We got to come together more as a team,” said Fairbanks. “I think we have to have fun, and we have to minimize the runs we give up in the first inning. I think every single game we give up at least one 1st inning run, and when you do that, you don’t win a lot of ball games.”

“Whenever we’d get a guy on 2nd base, we tried to do too much, you know, and say, if there was runner on 2nd with no outs, trying to hit a hard ball to the outfield and getting that sac fly, we would try to hit a home run or have too big of a swing,” explained senior 1st baseman and designated hitter Cooper Schenck. “We just need to have that approach of moving the guy over and doing your job.”

The Warriors lost eight seniors from last year’s roster, including key pitching rotation pieces in Keaton Lingenfelter and 2025 Brainerd Male Athlete of the Year Eli Hoelz. But the boys are ready to take up the mantle, spearheaded by senior Braxton Tautges and an upstart group of sophomores.

“We got a couple of sophomores that’ll get some good innings,” said senior pitcher and outfielder Maverick Badeaux. “We got potentially a freshman or two that will come up and play. And, you know, we got a couple of upperclassmen that have good arms. So we just got to be consistent.”

“Attack right away. I don’t like to get behind in the count, so I usually establish fastball right away and then work off of that,” added Tautges. “Feeling excited, I think we’ll be better than last year for opening day. I mean, opening day last year was pretty intense and we did pretty good, but this year, I think we’ll be better.”

The Warriors will open the season next Tuesday against Central Lakes Conference opponent Sauk Rapids-Rice. Brainerd split the season series with the storm in 2024.