Lenoir-Rhyne baseball entered 2025 chasing a vision.
It left the season with 50 wins, a Southeast Super Regional crown and the program’s first trip to the NCAA Division II World Series, falling one step shy of the championship game.
“From our very first meeting, I felt this group could do something special,” first-year head coach Adam Skonieczki said. “Talent matters, but the camaraderie and chemistry were what took us over the edge.”
That chemistry was apparent in Asheboro during the South Atlantic Conference tournament. The Bears took on perennial power Catawba, who had handed the Bears two straight losses to clinch the conference championship tournament title.
The Lenoir-Rhyne baseball team celebrates their win in the second round of the NCAA Division II Baseball Championship series on June 1.
Not to be deterred, the Bears hit the road to Belmont Abbey for the NCAA Southeast Regional. LR took down North Georgia twice and Belmont Abbey once to advance to the super regional for the first time in school history.
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The Bears flipped the script on Catawba in the super regionals. They dropped Game 1, but then clinched the series with dominant outings from William Girardi in Game 2 and Andrew Harlow in Game 3. LR's dominant offense stayed steady in both games, outscoring Catawba 12-4 in the final two games.
Adam Skonieczki was promoted to head coach of Lenoir-Rhyne’s baseball team last fall.
“We told the guys, 'you don’t have to sweep, you just have to win two',” Skonieczki said. “When you give the ball to Harlow in Game 3, you like your chances.”
Lenoir-Rhyne’s William Girardi pitches against North Georgia in a Southeast Regional game on May 17.
The Bears slugged their way to Cary, setting a Division II single-season record with 137 home runs and leading the nation in 15 different offensive categories. Seniors Owen Blackledge, Cole Stanford and Sal Carricato anchored a lineup that punished mistakes, while sophomore transfer Mackenzie Wainwright broke the D2 record for hits in a season with 121. Wainwright also finished the season with 102 runs. It was the third-most runs in LR history. Skonieczki credits strength coach Trent Caldwell and an approach built on maturity at the plate.
“Some of those guys are 22, 23,” he said. “I told them, either learn to hit or get a job, and they learned to hit.”
Adversity surfaced in late March when Lincoln Memorial stole a road series, snapping a seven-game win streak. Instead of wobbling, Skonieczki said his team used the stumble as fuel.
“You either win or you learn,” he said. “We learned we had to play cleaner baseball.”
LR baseball coach Adam Skonieczki sits in the Lenoir-Rhyne baseball stands with the team's 2025 regional championship trophy.
Clean became the standard. The Bears piled up error-free games, rolled through the Southeast Regional and stunned top-seed Belmont Abbey on its home field in Game 2. In Cary, LR toppled East Stroudsburg 15-11 in Game 1 and took down No. 2-seeded Central Missouri in a 12-9 battle in Game 2 before the Mules clawed back through the bracket to end the Bears’ run.
Skonieczki said his postgame talk never mentioned box scores, though.
“We lost a baseball game, but we won at a lot of things,” he told his players, citing school records, a 3.4 team GPA and a regional fan base that turned USA Baseball Stadium Lenoir-Rhyne red. “Proud is an understatement.”
Recruiting calls now come easier, he said. But the blueprint does not change. He is still looking for elite character, strong academics and fierce competitiveness.
“The only Division II thing about this place is the line beside the name,” Skonieczki said.
Hickory’s support of their hometown team may have been the season’s quiet MVP. Hundreds of fans caravanned to Belmont Abbey, Salisbury and Cary during the postseason, turning every neutral site into a sea of red and black.
“There were moments I caught myself fan-gazing,” Skonieczki said. “Central Missouri might have been the home team on the scoreboard, but the stands were ours.”
He said that traveling roar amplified practices, lifted late-inning rallies and reminded newcomers of what it means to be an LR baseball player. Next spring, Skonieczki expects the LR army to grow and nudge the Bears toward history again.
“By reaching Cary we reset the ceiling for LR baseball," he said. “We are now living the vision, not just talking about it.”
Perfect Game ranks next year's incoming class among the top 15 in the nation. This, in addition to the new talent coming in through the transfer portal, is giving the Bears high hopes for a repeat performance next spring.
