Despite the pandemic related slow downs in construction, Washington State baseball’s new clubhouse — dubbed the “Back to Omaha” project — has continue to see progress.

The brick facade is going up, and you can also begin to see where windows are going. It shouldn’t be too long before the interior develop and WSU joins the rest of its Pacific Northwest Pac-12 universities in having modern facilities.

Even with the delays, WSU is expecting construction to be finished in time for the 2021 college baseball season.

The project, which is completely funded by donor support, started construction on October 19th, 2019; five months after then head coach Marty Lees was fired and four months after Brian Green was hired away from New Mexico State.

Coach Green is incredibly excited about the new clubhouse and facility as is evident in this article from Stephan Wiebe.

“The classroom is there, it’s massive, bigger than I that it was going to be,” Green said. “… And the players’ lounge is a huge space; just the whole thing is window and you’re looking out at the field. The locker room is bigger than I thought, the weight room is bigger than I thought. It’s huge.”

Stephan Wiebe, Moscow-Pullman Daily News

The new facility is already paying dividends for Coach Green’s program. His first full class at Washington State is ranked 36th nationally, sixth in the Pac-12, according to Perfect Game. While the California schools (minus Cal) and Arizona schools all are in the top 30; the Cougars new class is the highest ranked class in the Pacific Northwest. Washington (50th), Oregon State (40th), and Oregon (44th) failed to pull in classes that have been up to their recent standards.

The class is incredibly deep and includes some of the best prospects from the state of Washington, along with some talented out of state recruits. From Washington, Coach Green signed the following top prospects:

• IF Kyle Russell — 90th overall prospect in the country, fourth in the state
• OF Albert Jennings — the no. 1 outfielder in state
• RHP Tyler Hoeft — the ninth best prospect in state
• 3B Cody Dreis — sixth overall in state, and best third base prospect
• RHP Duke Brotherton — second best prospect in state
• RHP Cooper Barnum — sixth best prospect state
• C Louie Albrecht — 29th overall prospect in state

Coach Green and his staff also raided Arizona, California, and Colorado to round out his first recruiting class on the Palouse. For WSU to not only get back to Omaha, but to resume its historic place in college baseball, he’s going to have to assemble more classes like this.

And with the Back to Omaha project nearing completion, his ability to pull in highly rated recruiting classes should only get easier…especially if the wins start to roll in on the diamond.

Cover photo courtesy of WSU baseball