After a year away from the game he loves, WSU redshirt junior second baseman Trek Stemp is back with a more aggressive hack.

Currently leading the Cougars’ with a .356 batting average, 42 hits, 18 runs scored and a .408 on-base percentage, Stemp returned to what got him into baseball when he was a kid. Just swing away.

“I’m super aggressive at the plate and I’ve always been like that,” Stemp said. “I like to get my hack off and sometimes I do swing at bad pitches, but the aggressiveness I think is good. It sounds kind of weird but I feel like if you want to get to first base, why don’t you just add a tally to your hit column.”

Stemp has twice had hitting streaks of at least 10 games this season, recording at least one hit in his first 20 starts. The WSU second baseman has 15 more hits than any other player heading into their series against No. 10 Oregon State.

However, Stemp almost didn’t return to the Cougar baseball program. After taking some time away from the game and redshirting the 2015 season, he approached then-Head Coach Donnie Marbut about rejoining the program.

The players and coaches discussed it briefly before allowing him to return. A decision that Stemp doesn’t take for granted.

“I just feel fortunate to have the opportunity to come back and play,” Stemp said. “Last year I came and talked to the guys after I took that time off and kind of gave them the decision, if they wanted me to come back and play or not. So I was fortunate for them to allow me to come back.”

Before approaching Marbut and his teammates, Stemp went to a hitting cage in the Tri-Cities and found his swing again. His father, Bruce Stemp, knew that he would return with a flare when he made the decision to come back.

“It’s funny because we talked about it – me and his brothers – we talked about it over the winter,” Bruce said. “We all felt he would come out a ball of fire. That seems to be the way he does things. We were all pretty confident he would come out and have a bang-up year.”

Despite the Cougars 10-19 overall record and 3-9 in conference, Stemp has been able to make an impact in almost every game regardless of outcome. For first-year Head Coach Marty Lees, having the rejuvenated Stemp, playing a position that he hadn’t played much before, is nothing but a blessing.

“For him to – typically when kids move positions the hitting takes a hit – Trek isn’t like that,” Lees said. “He’s an aggressive kid so we have to monitor his aggressiveness because it gets him in trouble at times. But when it’s all said and done it’s what makes him, him. But that’s our challenge and I can’t ask anymore out of him.”

Stemp enters the Oregon State series six hits shy of tying his career mark at 48, set back during his freshman season. With his hack he’s certain to break that stat.