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When Alec Blakestad began his Concordia career in the fall of 2020, he observed established Bulldog Baseball veterans such as Ben Berg, Keaton Candor and Jesse Garcia. The Omaha native can look back now and honestly say that he was a bit in awe. Under Head Coach Ryan Dupic, the program was beginning to establish itself as one of the more powerful offensive outfits in the entire country. The returning sluggers cast an intimidating shadow. The 5-foot-10 Blakestad hit exactly zero home runs during his prep career.
That’s also the same number of college scholarship offers that Blakestad had received to play baseball at the time he entered his senior year at Millard North High School. A high school season that saw him hit south of the Mendoza Line became the look-in-the-mirror moment for Blakestad, who knew he was capable of more.
As Blakestad recalls, “My junior spring or summer I hit like .190. I just had a really bad year. I took a picture of the stat sheet and zoomed in on my batting average of .190 and I had that as my phone background all of the offseason. I did play football in high school, but I started doing extra work for baseball. I used that batting average as motivation. That next summer (2020) I performed really well. I took that and was able to go play at Concordia.”
Four years later, the guy who went homerless in high school while mostly playing shortstop had developed into the best center fielder in the GPAC and had collected three GPAC all-conference awards along the way. Blakestad’s story is the one that Dupic will likely talk about years later as an example of what is possible for individuals who truly make the commitment to maximizing their potential. Blakestad improved his game so rapidly that he won a starting position as a sophomore, claiming the job over an incumbent.
By the end of his collegiate career this past spring, Blakestad had piled up career totals of 195 runs scored, 196 hits, 42 doubles, seven triples, 30 home runs, 149 RBIs and 55 stolen bases to go along with a .350 batting average. Without question, those numbers put Blakestad in the discussion as a top 15-to-20 player in the program’s history. So how did this happen for someone who had nearly given up on the idea of playing baseball beyond high school? The story begins with how Blakestad got connected to Concordia in the first place.
As someone who had coached Blakestad for two years of summer ball, Conner Watson saw potential in the prep shortstop, who displayed the requisite athleticism, speed and quickness of a future college athlete. Watson spent the 2020 season assisting Dupic’s staff at Concordia. The relationship between Blakestad and Watson eventually put Blakestad on the radar of both Concordia and Morningside. Blakestad collected 40 hits for a 2020 Millard North team that went 24-9 overall.
“I visited Concordia – I know my dad would say the same thing – and we were on the drive back and I told him I wanted to go there,” Blakestad said. “It was an instant connection with the coaches. All the players that I ate lunch with were great guys. Everyone was open and welcoming. Even though I was just there on a visit, all the coaches were great. It was an instant connection that felt natural and drew me to Concordia. I didn’t really have many coaches talking to me. The guys at Concordia treated me like I was already on the team. I was really lucky to have the opportunity.”
While Blakestad endured struggles as a high school junior, he displayed talent that was keenly observed by Dupic and staff. Blakestad secured a spot on the varsity roster as a freshman and even earned a start at shortstop by game No. 6 of the 2021 season. As that campaign wore on, Blakestad settled into a role as a super sub who could pinch hit, pinch run or provide a defensive replacement in the outfield. He posted 11 hits in 35 at bats in a rookie year that included a trip to the NAIA World Series.
Then in 2022, Blakestad was rewarded with the starting job in center field – and he never loosened his grip. A breakthrough moment came on March 10 of that season when Blakestad left the yard in Lake Wales, Fla., for his first home run ever. Not his first home run in college. His first home run ever. It wasn’t as if Blakestad needed to be Garcia – or Joey Grabanski or Jaidan Quinn – but he began to understand that he had the ability to drive the baseball.
Explains Blakestad of his success, “It was a combination of the training Coach (Caleb) Lang had us working on and then learning from the guys around me. I’ve been really close with Joey all four years. He was a really good guy to learn from. I really put an emphasis on hitting the ball hard as often as possible and hitting it hard to all fields. That was a big component of it. We were hitting off 90-mile-per-hour machines every day. We did a lot of speed bat training and weighted bat training. Swinging faster and hitting the ball harder go hand in hand. That’s what our training was built on.”
Blakestad laughed when asked if he thought he would hit 30 home runs over his college career (in 560 at bats). Replied Blakestad, “Absolutely not. I didn’t think I’d have five. Before my first home run my sophomore year, I don’t think I had ever hit a home run, even in BP. I had never hit a legit home run at any level. Double-digit home runs in a season was wild to me. I didn’t think I was capable of doing that.”
He also joked about the first time he clubbed multiple home runs in a single game. Says Blakestad, “That was the day where I thought, ‘This is what it feels like to be Joey and Q.’ Every swing felt really good. That was fun.”
The speedy center fielder batted fourth in the lineup in 2024, but he was a lot more than a power hitter. He frequently made impressive diving catches while running from gap to gap. Blakestad stood out as one of the most athletic players on the entire roster during the winningest era of Concordia Baseball in program history. The skillset Blakestad possesses would have allowed him to play virtually anywhere on the diamond. Beyond that, Blakestad fit into the culture as another team-first type of guy. Blakestad proved it by transitioning to a position he hadn’t played since eighth grade.
The passage of additional time will likely give Blakestad greater perspective on the past four years. It’s been about more than GPAC championships and trips to the national tournament. A few short months after his career ended, Blakestad gushes about Dupic and the way he’s built and maintained an elite program. Dupic and his staff will continue to seek student-athletes like Blakestad, who earned his Concordia degree in Physics.
“Alec’s story is what collegiate athletics are all about,” Dupic said. “We recruited Alec and saw athleticism and potential in him, but we weren’t sure at the time what exactly would come out of it or how polished it all might become. Through his growth and maturation as a person and player, and through his work ethic, it quickly became apparent that we had something special, and he proved that throughout his career. He went from being a prospect with potential to a reliable player, and as rewarding as that was to see, there was no doubt that his maturation as a person played a vital role in that development.”
Offers Blakestad, “I learned from Coach Dupic and Coach Lang about how to be a better person. The people you are with are really what make everything better. You’re not always going to remember the games. One thing everyone will remember is the people you did it with. That’s what I’ll think about more often than the games that I had. The experiences and memories I had with the people there are what made it as enjoyable as it was.”