Photo courtesy of Bethel Athletics Bethel Royals pitcher Mark Anderson has quickly taken on a larger role in his freshman season of baseball with the Royals, leading the team in innings pitched (38) and sporting a 5-1 record.

ARDEN HILLS — Entering his freshman season of baseball with the Bethel University Royals, Mark Anderson didn’t imagine his first-year role with the team to be what it is now.

The 2024 Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s High School graduate has surpassed early expectations, however, thanks to an early vote of confidence from his coaches.

Now 120 miles northeast of the small town of Sleepy Eye, the 6-foot-4 righty is one of the Royals’ top starting pitchers and boasts a 2.13 ERA to go with a team-high 38 innings pitched.

“Coming in, I thought I’d make a few appearances here or there, I thought I was going to be a relief pitcher or something like that,” Anderson said. “But as we got closer and closer to the season, my coaches would call me in and be like, ‘Hey, you’ve got to push for a bigger role and be more confident.’ So as I’m getting closer to the season, I’m kind of like, ‘Hey, I’m probably going to get some bigger innings here.’ So I kind of got that in my head and boosted my confidence a little bit.”

Anderson, now 5-1 on the year with 34 strikeouts, started his season off pitching 3 2/3 innings of relief in a nonconference game against Crown on Feb. 24 in Kansas City, Missouri, striking out five while allowing just one walk and no hits for no runs. After pitching another inning of relief against the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire on March 4 at U.S. Bank Stadium, the Royals went down to Auburndale, Florida, for an eight-game road trip.

During that trip, Anderson was asked to make his first career collegiate start for the Royals on March 11 against Loras College.

Any questions regarding Anderson’s ability to start and help lead the Royals in his freshman campaign were quickly answered.

Anderson not only got the start, going 6 2/3 innings, but he also got the win, allowing six hits and no walks for one earned run while punching out seven.

“The first start down in Florida, getting that first win and getting that monkey off my back of like, ‘Hey, it’s your first start,'” Anderson said. “After that it was just kind of like I settled in a lot more and had a lot more confidence, because we played a decent team and it was just like, ‘Oh, you’re going to have to probably give us a longer start.’ It was a lot of pressure, but I felt like I did a good job of embracing the pressure and I had great teammates to give me support and get me through that.”

The Royals ended up winning that game 8-2.

Anderson said the trip to Florida got extended due to weather, but he enjoyed what was a new experience to him.

“It was definitely a long trip that actually got longer because we had to stay down there an extra three days because of storms rolling through there,” Anderson said. “So we actually got stuck there for extra days. But the days we were down there for baseball were definitely really fun, and it was definitely really interesting because in high school I didn’t really get to do that stuff, I didn’t travel for baseball at all. So to have this experience going down to Florida and playing baseball every day, it was a great experience and I had a lot of fun with it.”

Anderson, who was touching 87 miles per hour in game with his fastball last season, has added some velocity this year and has seen his fastball hit 90 on the radar gun. While throwing his fastball harder has been a help, learning how to slow things down has been one nice change that has yielded results for the big right-hander.

“I added a changeup this year and that’s definitely been a helper pitch for me,” Anderson said. “I’ve tried in the past to add it and I was really bad at it, but now that I’ve been here, coaches have helped me a lot develop that pitch specifically. So I have a lot more confidence in it than I have before.”

The Royals are now 25-8 overall and lead the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) with a 14-2 conference record. They’re scheduled for a MIAC doubleheader at Augsburg University on Tuesday afternoon.

The Royals then host the University of Northwestern-St. Paul in a nonconference doubleheader Wednesday before traveling to Winona to take on Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota in a MIAC doubleheader Sunday. The regular season closes with a 2:30 p.m. home MIAC game against the University of Minnesota Morris on Monday, with the MIAC playoffs beginning on May 8.