photo by: David Rodish/Journal-World

Lawrence first baseman Hudson Hardesty winds up to throw to the pitcher in a 6-3 loss to Deer Creek at Hoglund Ballpark on Thursday, April 24, 2025, in Lawrence.

Since the start of the high school baseball season, Hudson Hardesty has competed in over 70 baseball games between the school season and summer club baseball season.

These past few months have been important for Hardesty as he works to showcase his talent for colleges. That’s led Hardesty to take four trips to Atlanta for various national competitions, including the Preps Baseball Future Games, which brings top players from each state to compete against each other.

Hardesty, a rising junior at Lawrence High, was joined by Free State rising juniors Finn Moore, Owen Lester and Ryker Mahnke. After seeing a few of them receive invitations, Hardesty was waiting and hoping for his. All are 2027 graduates and competed against other 2027 graduates from around the country.

“It was probably the week before I saw that some of my teammates were getting invited before I did,” Hardesty said. “So I was really excited when I got invited. I got a text message from some spam number that said, ‘you’ve been invited.’ I kind of started jumping around in circles.”

The tournament took place during the final weekend of July and had hundreds of college coaches in attendance. There, Hardesty put on a show with a walk-off double, a home run and more plays to get the attention of college coaches.

“I’ve gotten to play for a lot against a lot of good competition, and play with some really good players on my team,” Hardesty said. “It’s been really fun. It’s been a good experience.”

Hardesty’s goal is to earn a scholarship to play baseball, and this summer has been about getting started in the process. By earning invitations to tournaments and other events, Hardesty is seeing the work he’s already put in start to pay off.

“It shows you that people have lots of confidence in you, and they think you’re good at baseball,” Hardesty said. “That was my goal going into the summer, to get invited to that event.”

For the remainder of the summer, Hardesty is balancing baseball with practices for Lawrence’s football team. When he isn’t on the diamond, he’s working out with the Lions at linebacker.

Hardesty’s focus on baseball this summer isn’t just about recruiting, but also about improving his game and leadership to help the Lawrence High baseball team improve his junior year.

“I think that we have a good chance to be good, and I think I have to keep working on being the best teammate I can, to encourage people to get out and practice so that we can improve as a team together and just put in extra work,” Hardesty said. “Not just at baseball practice during the off season as well.”

The Lions had positive wins early in the season but struggled to string wins together in the Sunflower League with an inexperienced team. Now, Hardesty believes the team can be much better with that experience and everyone pushing each other.

“I think that we showed that we can be a pretty good team when we play together, but the competition we’re playing against in the Sunflower League is really good, and you have to be on top of your game every game if you want to win,” Hardesty said. “I think we just didn’t really know that, because we were pretty young, but I think this year we’ll be better at that.”

For the rest of his summer, Hardesty is hoping to go to a few more showcases and tournaments in hopes his success brings eyes and scholarship offers.