Lourdes junior has Division I baseball scouts hot on his trail

Sep. 23—ROCHESTER — Nick Bowron is a junior at Lourdes and one of the top baseball prospects in Minnesota for the class of 2025.

The 6-foot-1, 190-pound left-handed hitter is being recruited by numerous top-flight Division I programs including Oklahoma State, LSU, North Carolina, Texas, Texas A&M and Notre Dame.

Bowron has been on the Lourdes' varsity since he was a freshman. The hard-throwing 17-year-old talked about baseball, including his recruiting process.

You are currently playing fall ball with the Cincinnati Reds' scout team. How has that been going and what does it entail?

It's going really well, a super group of guys, love the coaches, love the team and everything. It's kind of an affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. We have the uniforms that they wear, the pants and the hats and our coach is a scout. We've been in Milwaukee, Iowa, and we go to Milwaukee this weekend. And in two weeks we go to Jupiter, Fla., for the big national tournament. There will be a whole bunch of teams and college coaches and pro scouts everywhere you look.

A lot of players from that team get drafted every year. How great is it to play with that level of competition?

It's sweet. Some of the competition we play against isn't super great, but I'm super excited for Florida. When we get there, it's going to be the best competition that you can see at my age and the age above. The Reds team, it's mainly seniors on the team, so it's cool to play against all those guys and see the pro scouts in the stands.

You also have an upcoming camp in Iowa. Do you attend a lot of national camps and showcase events?

This is only my second camp I've been to because my schedule has been super busy in the summer. Mainly when (college) coaches see me is in the spring, the summer and the fall season, when I'm playing, not at camps.

You're being recruited by a lot of big-time baseball programs. How has that process been going?

It's going really great. It's definitely crazy to think that it has started now and everything's going super quick. It's going well, talking to a lot of coaches. I basically talk three or four nights a week to a coach on the phone. I'm hopefully going to commit sometime this fall or winter after (the tournament in) Jupiter. We'll see how that goes.

Is the recruiting process fun or more nerve racking?

At times I would say it's more nerve racking than fun. Like for me, Oklahoma State is my No. 1 school and there's been times when I won't play well and I know that they're there. It's nerve racking because I want to do well because I want go there. But most of the time it's super fun, like getting a good training session and knowing I can do it and believing in myself. And going out and competing and knowing my time will come.

You can throw the ball very hard. What has your fastball been timed at?

The hardest I've been clocked at is 92.

But your favorite position is catcher, right? And what is your projected position at the next level?

I hit 90 on the mound last fall and that's when the recruiting process started. .... I was consistently at 88 to 91 and then hit 92. Then I hit 89 at an Oklahoma State camp and I also hit really well at that camp so it was kind of a two-way thing. Coaches wanted me to hit and pitch for them. Once I hurt my arm over the spring, things kind of went downhill with the pitching side. So mostly it's hitting and catching right now. But I'm still going to train for pitching right now for the future — to lean back on — in case catching doesn't work out.

You helped Lourdes place third in the Class 2A state tournament as a freshman, but this spring you were limited due to an injury. How frustrating was that?

It was really upsetting once I figured out I was hurt and couldn't play in the field anymore. It was definitely

a really cool experience to play third (base) for that (third-place) team

. That was a super deep team and a super good class with the seniors we had. It was pretty upsetting (this spring), but knowing I could help my team still swinging the bat was pretty encouraging.

Do you have a long-term goal of what you would like to achieve in baseball?

I definitely want to play high-level Division I baseball and then get drafted.