USA Baseball: Taylor Selected To 2022 Collegiate National Team Roster
Brayden Taylor, TCU 3rd Baseman, has been named part of the 26-man final roster for the 2022 Collegiate National Team. He and the team will represent Team USA at Honkbalweek Haarlem July 8-15 at Pim Mulier Stadium in Haarlem, The Netherlands. The final roster was announced after completing the Collegiate National Team Training Camp; a five-game intrasquad series played throughout North Carolina over the July 4th holiday weekend.
Taylor, a sophomore from West Jordan, Utah, played in 59 of TCU’s 60 games in 2022, starting in 58. He had 66 hits, including 13 home runs, 55 runs, and a 3.14 batting average.
Taylor and teammates River Ridings and Luke Savage were all selected for the Collegiate National Team Training Camp. Fifty-one non-draft eligible players from across the country participated in the training camp. Taylor was the only player from the Big 12 to make the final 26-man roster. Maui Ahuna, who played for Kansas in 2022, also made the roster, but he has transferred to Tennessee.
Team USA will begin play at Honkbalweek Haarlem on Saturday, July 9, against Japan at 8 a.m. ET. They will also play games against Italy, Cuba, the Netherlands, and Curacao to complete group play. The second round of competition will follow on July 14, ahead of the championship on July 15. Team USA has competed at Honkbalweek Haarlem five times since 2000 and has earned four gold medals, including its most recent appearance in 2014.
The squad is managed by Mike Bianco, the coach at Ole Miss, this year’s national champion. Josh Holiday, Oklahoma State head coach, is part of Team USA’s coaching staff.
"A week ago, as I sat with the fifty-one players that we invited to Cary, I told them what a tremendous honor this is because you are fifty-one of the best amateur baseball players in the United States of America,” said Bianco. “To narrow it down nearly in half is quite a task. We shared with all of them, as honestly and candidly as we could, that there are players that will go home that will play in the big leagues and be All-Americans next year. I commend these coaches and the USA Baseball committee on the selections we have made. We can't wait to get to work today and on the road to winning the championship at Honkbalweek."
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