Sixty-Five AppleSox Alums Appear on 2025 NCAA Division-I Opening Day Rosters
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The 2025 NCAA Division-I baseball season begins today and 65 former Wenatchee AppleSox players will be in action.
Former AppleSox players competing in NCAA Division-I baseball date as far back as having played in Wenatchee in 2021 (eight players; Enzo Apodaca, Tino Bethancourt, Jack DeDonato, Dakota Duffalo, AJ Guerrero, Jacob Hughes, Zach Toglia, Jackson Van De Brake). Thirty-three of the 65 players played for the 2024 AppleSox, who won the North Division and finished as West Coast League runners-up. Fifty-nine of the 65 players have been coached by Mitch Darlington, who will begin his fourth season with the AppleSox in 2025 after winning a share of the 2024 WCL Head Coach of the Year honor.
Perhaps no former AppleSox player in college baseball will attract more attention this season than Aiva Arquette, a shortstop on the 2022 AppleSox. Arquette, a junior at Oregon State, has racked up a plethora of preseason honors that include being named a 2025 Perfect Game College Preseason All-American First Team Infielder, a National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Preseason All-American, MLB Pipeline’s seventh-best 2025 MLB Draft prospect and a 2025 Golden Spikes Award Preseason Watch List member.
Arquette was selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 18th round of the 2022 MLB Draft in the midst of a standout summer with the AppleSox. He hit .335 in 39 games and collected a team-high 39 RBI, a figure that also put him tied for the fourth-most in the WCL. The Kailua, Hawaii native spent two seasons at Washington before transferring to Oregon State last fall. He made the All-Pac-12 Team and Pac-12 All Defense Team as a sophomore and hit .325 with 12 home runs and 36 RBI in 48 games.
Several AppleSox alums are playing in their fifth-year of eligibility this spring, thanks to waivers being granted due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Enzo Apodaca (2021-22) returns to Baylor after leading the Bears in batting average (.333), hits (70) and RIB (42) in 2024. Apodaca is the AppleSox’ all-time leader in career walks (64) and is tied for third in steals (21). Jackson Van De Brake (2021) will compete in his third year at North Carolina and look to lead the Tar Heels back to the NCAA Tournament for a seventh straight time.
The reigning WCL batting champion Aidan Dougherty joins this list after heading to UCONN following a dominant 2024 with Linn-Benton and then the AppleSox. Dougherty captured an NWAC Championship while also being named NWAC Tournament MVP, First Team All-NWAC and NWAC South Region MVP. He led the entire NWAC with a .371 batting average in 43 games before going on to lead the WCL in the same category with a .380 mark in 44 games. Dougherty also earned All-WCL First Team honors by swimming 21 bags, the third-most in AppleSox single-season history.
Two other All-WCL recipients return to their Division-I universities in Max Hartman and Jonathan Fitz. Hartman is back at Washington State after earning All-WCL Second Team honors with the AppleSox last summer. He was a start-to-finish player with the AppleSox, appearing in a team-high 51 of a possible 54 games. Hartman also was a 2024 All-Star and tied Portland’s Tanner Griffith for the most runs in the WCL (51) while also tying for the fifth-most hits (64), the seventh-most at-bats (196) and the ninth-best on-base percentage (.440). Fitz led all AppleSox catchers with 22 starts before also starting all five postseason games. The incoming sophomore at San Diego tied for fifth on the team with 23 RBI and drew 21 walks, good for fourth-most. Including the postseason, Fitz hit .304 over his final 28 games. The 2024 WCL All-Star recorded six multi-hit games and a .982 fielding percentage.
The full list of AppleSox alums on NCAA Division-I rosters can be viewed below.
