AKRON, Ohio — Nearly five years after the University of Akron cut its baseball program, the Zips are back on the diamond.

  • The team is mostly made up of freshmen and junior college transfers
  • The team is already facing challenges, having to prove themselves their first season back
  • So far, the team has lost their first seven games

The university eliminated the sport back in 2015 due to financial struggles. 

New head baseball coach Chris Sabo is now rebuilding the Division 1 team from the ground up. Sabo is a former World Series Champion with the Cincinnati Reds and he also served as the team’s hitting coach.

"This opportunity arose to try to build this program from scratch, which is hardly ever done at the Division 1 level for baseball and I'm approaching 60 years old, so I thought this would be a good opportunity as one last challenge in my life to try to make this a success,” said Sabo. 

The Zips are in for quite a challenge this season with a lot to prove. The team, which is not offering any athletic scholarships, is mostly made up of freshmen and junior college transfers. 

So far, the baseball team has played and lost all of their first eight games. 

"Most teams only recruit 7, 8, 9, 10 guys in a season, I had to recruit 35, 36 which is hard to do,” said Sabo. "The biggest challenge right now is trying to get some hits. Our pitching and our defense have been pretty good. I still believe we're gonna be successful in the long run."

Players say they are still learning to play as a team on their brand-new synthetic turf field. 

With more than 40 games left in the season, the team hopes to find their sweet spot and prove it was worth the university’s investment. 

"Obviously we’re very excited that everyone cares about it enough to put the money in and effort in to bring it back, I think that says a lot about the people that are behind us. Our big thing as a team is just getting better every day and if we can do that then I feel like we can be successful and that will turn into wins,” said Justin Barr, shortstop, University of Akron Baseball.