Perhaps the biggest turnaround in collegiate baseball came from BYU as it posted a 39-19-1 record in making 2005 a memorable season.
The Cougars led the Mountain West Conference in 15 team and eight individual categories. For six weeks of the mid-season, BYU led the MWC standings in first place, falling just shy of a team goal 40 wins and a conference title. This effort originated last Fall with a mile run up Y Mountain, symbolized in a team unity coin.
BYU finished in second place after losing a rare pair of games in a row to UNLV in the league championship. The Cougars' 21-9 league record also was runnerup to UNLV, a team picked to win the league, while BYU was projected fourth.
Coach Vance Law promised his players if they would put the team first, individual honors would fall into place. He was right, as the Cougars were led by an All-American in Brandon Taylor, an Academic All-American in Kory Knell, a Freshman All-American in Sean McNaughton and had five all-conference performers and four players drafted as they finished first in the nation in slugging and doubles and in the top 10 in three other national categories en route to an impressive record and three victories over nationally-ranked teams.
"We had a whale of a year," said Law. "I am proud of our team to finish 20 games over .500. I think we were one of the better teams in the country."
BYU got off to one of the best starts in school history at 17-5-1 before running into a buzzsaw at Oregon State when the College World Series-bound Beavers swept a doubleheader to stop an eight-game winning streak. Seven weeks in a row BYU received votes in the four major polls, but never broke the top 25. Forty percent of BYU's runs were scored during the season with two outs and tallied a 5-6 record in one-run games.
"I am so proud of how hard my team and my coaching staff has worked to have such a fun and entertaining year for us and our fans," said Law. "Through all the injuries, I am proud of the way our entire team performed to keep us in the race right down to the last game."
Thirteen records were felled or tied by the Cougars, led by Taylor who tied one national and two school records, and broke one league record. Taylor, who was the MWC Player of the Year, grabbed the national spotlight when he hit for the cycle two weeks in a row and hit a couple of his five grand slams during that span. The junior third baseman finished as the nation's No. 3 slugger in RBI and ranked in the top 20 in home runs and slugging.
Taylor, who was an All-American selection by three different organizations, had hoped for a draft selection higher than the 17th round when he was taken by the Chicago Cubs. Junior pitcher Dave Horlacher was taken in the eighth round by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Southpaw senior pitchers Lance Beus and Ryan Chambers were drafted in the 28th and 40th rounds, respectively, by the Seattle Mariners and the Cubs.
Beus and Chambers were two of five seniors, who along with seven freshmen opting to serve missions, will create big shoes to fill. Chambers was one of the hottest players by season's end, batting .352 from his centerfield position and tallying three saves with 14 strikeouts in 8.2 key innings from the mound.
Junior Jeff Hiestand, who had a 29-game hitting streak and was on base in all but one of his 50 games, led the Cougars with a .371 batting average. He traded time with junior Ben Saylor at first base and in the outfield. Saylor was among the nation's leaders with his 25 doubles.
Junior Apana Nakayama, a designated hitter, joined Horlacher and Chambers on the All-MWC Tourney team. Nakayama batted .344 with a team-high 88 hits. Field magician Marcos Villezcas, a shortstop, rounds out the list of four starters returning. McNaughton led the team with five triples.
Underclassman pitchers accounted for 24 of the 39 victories and nine of the 12 saves recorded in 2005. The top pitching record was 6-1 with a 4.24 earned run average by sophomore Matt Jensen. Juniors Josh Barrett and Justin Su'a tied with the most pitching appearances at 21.
Attendance at home topped 25,000 for the second time in the five-year history of Miller Park, but rainy weather forced two single dates into doubleheaders.
Injuries hobbled the Cougars. Hiestand played the entire season with a broken bone in his right hand. Patrick Wells, a southpaw who was BYU's top starter in 2004, ended up declaring a medical redshirt because of a sore arm after two starts. McNaughton was off to a fabulous start as BYU's leadoff batter in his freshman year, but broke his thumb mid-way through league play, consequently missing 13 games before returning. And versatile Adrian Molina suffered a season-ending broken hand in a car accident just before the MWC Tourney.
All told, it was an improvement over 2004 when BYU was 28-30 and turned it around to 39-19-1.