This year’s baseball team features one of the top 10 outfielders in college baseball, junior Taylor Dugas. The two-time All-American and All-SEC performer returns to the Tide after leading the team with a .395 batting average and .530 on-base percentage.

“Taylor has made a big impact from the day he stepped on campus,” head coach Mitch Gaspard said. “Obviously, he was a freshman All-American, and he was an All-American again last year. He’s been a fixture in the top of our lineup and has impacted our team in a lot of different ways.

“I think he’s a guy that brings great energy every day to the ballpark, whether we’re in practice or game settings,” he said. “Now, here he is in his junior year, and he’s really stepped up as one of the leaders of our team. He’s a guy that’s a really good player and a guy that means a lot to our program, and he’s been a very consistent player for us over a three year period.”

Dugas is currently ranked in the top 100 of college baseball prospects by collegebaseballdaily.com and is ranked No. 7 among outfielders by college baseball 360. Though Dugas brings in accolade after accolade every year, he said it’s all about the team.

“Personally, it’s good to get all those accolades,” he said. “You would hope to get those, but it’s all about the team. I could really care less about those goals; I’d rather just get to Omaha.”

The Crimson Tide finished 42-25 overall last season. Dugas finished the regular season with 96 hits, 70 runs and 19 out of 24 stolen bases. He said that one of his main focuses during the offseason has been working on his speed to be able to steal more bases. Gaspard said that Dugas has worked on every asset of his game and has especially improved with his throwing.

This year, Dugas will be put into more of a leadership role on a team that has 20 newcomers, including freshmen, transfers and redshirts. But this should be no problem for him as he has his eyes set on one goal — Omaha.

“Coming into this season, we have a lot of new guys on the team,” Dugas said. “Being that I’ve been here for the past two years, I have some experience, and I’ve been around a lot of the older guys trying to do what they did and try and take the next step and get to Omaha.

So, what can Alabama fans expect from Dugas and the Tide this year?

“You can expect to see a team that plays really hard and gets dirty every day,” Dugas said. “We have a lot of energy out here and you know we’re going to have fun every day. That’s what you can expect to see.”

Gaspard said, “Hopefully [fans will see] a lot of what they’ve seen the first two years and that’s a guy that’s going to play hard every night. They’re going to see a very scrappy player, a guy that’s going to hit for a high average and make things happen on the bases and a good defensive player,” Gaspard said. “He knows the type of player that he is and he understands that and he really doesn’t get out of that. He stays right in that course of thinking every night and that’s what makes him good night in and night out, so I think fans will see the same player that they’ve seen for the last two years, but a guy with a little more experience and a few more at bats under his belt. Hopefully production will go up from where it’s been.”