The Master’s University baseball’s Jonah Jarrard didn’t find out he was an NAIA Second Team All-American for himself.
His fiancé told him.
But Jarrard thinks her role this season was much bigger than that.
After losing to Menlo College in the regular season, the junior proposed to his then-girlfriend.
“Losing worked to my advantage because I was able to propose to my fiancé at the Palace of fine arts in San Francisco,” Jarrard said. “I proposed to her and then we ended up winning 11 or 12 straight games.”
Those wins helped propel the Mustangs to a 41-23 season, a GSAC Tournament title, a sweep in the NAIA Tournament opening round and an NAIA World Series appearance for the second season in a row.
Jarrard also led the Golden State Athletic Conference in hitting with a final batting average of .406. His 86 hits set a single-season program record and he led the team with 19 doubles and 152 total bases.
He tied for first on the team with a .488 on-base average and was second with a 1.025 OPS, despite battling a dislocated shoulder early in the season.
At the World Series, Jarrard was 5-for-16 at the plate and had six RBIs.
“In the beginning of the season, we just plagued with injuries … At one point things didn’t look so sharp and in the back of my mind I was just so confident,” Jarrard said. “The guys we had, I knew we weren’t going to give up.
“Our motto was to serve the king and by doing that we were giving it everything we had.”
Jarrard will not return to TMU baseball next season. He will be taking an EMT course with the goal of becoming a firefighter.
