St. John’s baseball begins the 2026 season with fresh face in charge

A new era is under way in Collegeville as first-year head coach Scott Lieser takes over the helm of St. John’s baseball, succeeding longtime skipper Jerry Haugen, who retired after 48 seasons.

“It’s super fun. Every day is a brand-new challenge. I’ve said it a million times, but having a dream job like this is fun,” Lieser said. “It’s challenging, but that makes it exciting.”

“He brings a new life to the program. There’s just a lot of energy with him being a younger coach,” senior infielder Reed Marquardt said. “His ability to connect with players is really cool and we enjoy being around him.”

The Johnnies have picked up two series wins over Buena Vista and Simpson to start the season 4-2.

“It’s been exciting,” Lieser said. “I’m just super proud of the resilience of our guys and the constant battle that they put in. It’s fun to see.” Marquardt, who was an All-MIAC honorable mention in 2024, is leading the team with a .440 average and nine runs batted in.

“I’ve been hitting the ball well, finding gaps, just trying to do my job by putting the ball in play with runners on,” said Marquardt.

SJU also returns 2025 All-MIAC outfielder Alex Matchey. The junior drove in 24 runs and hit for a .366 average last spring and is batting .393 to begin this season.

Another key member back is senior outfielder Brendan Hemr who made the All-MIAC playoff team last season and hit .352 with 39 RBIs in his junior campaign.

SJU also brought in a pair of D1 transfers in junior catcher Mason McCurdy from Creighton and freshman shortstop Will Koeppen from St. Thomas.

On the pitching side early on, SJU relied on senior Vinny Schleper, juniors Matthew Magnuson, Hunter Hoen, Carter Theisen and first-year Max Edwards.

“There’s a lot of guys that we’re going to have pitch, and there’s some guys that haven’t even thrown yet that are going to help us on the mound this year,” Lieser said.

As the Johnnies push for a return atop the MIAC, Marquardt emphasized a team-first mentality.

“Obviously I want to play as best as I can to help the team win but our main goal is to win a conference championship and make a regional,” Marquardt said. “I want to bring a championship to St. John’s.”

The Johnnies have not won the MIAC tournament or claimed an NCAA tournament berth since 2019.

“One thing that I constantly preach is having a championship mindset and championship level effort,” Lieser said. “I just want us to play ultimate team baseball. I believe we have some serious depth which is super fun to have. We’re going to use a lot of guys in different situations throughout every game.”

Lieser is hoping to install a strong focus, centered around doing the small things efficiently.

“I want to be more aggressive on the base paths and be better defensively,” Lieser said. “With pitching, I really emphasize getting ahead of batters. We don’t need to strike everybody out, but we want to be working ahead on the mound and have the foot on the gas all the time.”

With Marquardt being a senior, he feels that being a leader is crucial to his role on the team this spring.

“We’ve taken on being leaders and ran with it,” Marquardt said of himself and the senior class. “It’s been a lot of fun to fill that role, making the entire team feel welcomed.”

Marquardt also noted that a difference in this year’s team is the depth and the balance throughout the entire lineup.

“We are a lot more balanced offensively this season, and we’ve got a very deep lineup, having talented guys that aren’t in the starting lineup,” Marquardt said. “We’ve got guys on our team that can hit the ball out of the park, but we’ve also got guys that are willing to fill their role. We can play a lot more small ball, stealing bases and moving runners over into scoring position.”

What a successful first-year looks like for a head coach can always be debated, but Lieser believes a successful first-year requires his team to be playing at their best come playoff time.

“My ultimate hope for the team is that we’re playing the best baseball that we can play at the end of our season,” Lieser said. “If we’re playing our best ball at the end, we’re going to be a dangerous team.”