Years of Schwabe family baseball winding down with Bison

That’s been equivalent to a jaunt to the moon, or something like that.

It’s winding down now, at least the collegiate portion. Bison senior center fielder Cadyn Schwabe is one of the team's leaders heading into the first round game Wednesday night against host Oral Roberts.

“It’s been a really fun ride and excited to see what we can do this week,” Schwabe said.

Trace the starting line to Thompson, North Dakota, where his father, Jason Schwabe, was the youth coach for Cadyn and his older brother Calen Schwabe, who finished his NDSU career in 2022.

They’ve left it all on the field, with Cadyn starting 144 games in his three years. He has a .311 career batting average. Calen started 119 games for the Bison with one year being mostly interrupted by the pandemic.

“That’s just how we were raised and built,” Cadyn said. “Performance, you take that out of the picture, it’s just my goal to go out and give my full effort and that’s really all I focus on every day.”

Jason, who played at Mayville State and professionally in Australia for a year, was the boys’ youth coach until high school. Last weekend’s final home series at Newman Outdoor Field wasn’t easy.

“It’s going to be a big void in our lives,” Jason said. “On the baseball side, it’s been a lot of years.”

A lot of years watching and coaching both boys, who were part of standout Tommie teams in more than just baseball, where getting by Kindred and Park River was a chore. Cadyn played on state championship teams in baseball, basketball and football.

“Very blessed to have the family and the support that I do,” he said.

Both played junior college ball at Des Moines Area Community College before NDSU. Both played outfield. Both are fast.

The DMACC route wasn’t a slam dunk for Cadyn, who looked at multiple schools coming out of Thompson.

“My brother told me how it is, shot me straight,” he said. “It’s turned out to be a great fit and I’m really lucky to have played here.”

He’s uncertain about his future, on giving professional baseball a shot. Jason thinks he wants to remain involved with the game in some capacity, whether it’s playing or coaching. For now, however, it’s all about the Summit tourney this week, with the winner claiming an automatic berth to the NCAA tournament. Nebraska-Omaha and Northern Colorado play in the other first round game in the double elimination format.

Cadyn is on a roll. He's on a 23-game hitting streak and has had 20 games of at least two hits. He's reached base in 26 straight games. He's the program's career stolen base leader with 57, passing Tim Colwell. Speed? He leads the Summit in triples with five, which ranks him 16th in the country.

“Four teams, everyone has beaten everyone,” Cadyn said. “It’s going to be the best team that goes out and plays the best three or four games, but I like where we’re at. We’ve been going in the right direction as of late.”

The Schwabes might be one of the busiest families in the state of North Dakota this weekend. Not only is NDSU at the Summit, oldest daughter Sydney is graduating from Thompson High School, where Jason is the principal and will be handing out diplomas on Sunday after returning from Tulsa, and youngest daughter Jena is competing in the North Dakota Class B state track and field meet.

As a principal, getting to games with the road schedule NDSU plays wasn’t easy for the parents. They went to as many Summit games as they could and Jason wasn’t going to miss the series at LSU this season.

“It’s been a full-time job for them for four or five years now,” he said.