A lifetime of baseball, past and future

Athlete focus – Jacob Reguera, baseball

Armijo baseball is just one more step toward the MBA.

NCSA Sports

Armijo baseball is just one more step toward the MBA.

Jacob Reguera has been holding a bat since he was 4 years old when his parents first introduced him to baseball. “I knew it was the right sport for me,” he said. He started on the Armijo Junior Varsity baseball team as a freshman but the following year he was already on the Varsity team and has stayed there throughout his high school career.

Reguera’s favorite position is pitcher and he’s had plenty of time to learn that. “I’ve played for multiple travel ball teams ever since I was 8 years old,” he said. “I’ve won many championships with my travel ball team. It was almost like a weekly thing for me when I was around 11 to 14.”

While he’s played several games in his lifetime, one memory came to the forefront when he reflected. “Probably me hitting my first inside the park home run when I was little on my travel ball team,” he said. “I just kept running and running all around the bags on a hot day and slid into home plate and was so hyped.”

The last four years of high school baseball have not been without challenges. “COVID-19 affected my sophomore season. That season, our potential to making playoffs was so high because our team was so talented and with a bunch of hardworking people,” Reguera said. Then the shut-down caused all sports to rethink their strategy and shorten their seasons. 

Baseball wasn’t the only sport that Reguera was good at. “I used to play basketball for Armijo along with Christian Stoll being the head coach,” he said. “Unfortunately I had to end up leaving the team to pursue my dream of baseball and Coach Stoll was very supportive about it.”

It’s not enough just to think about baseball, though. Reguera continue to work out and improve his game both mentally and physically. This has become a lifestyle for him and he hopes to study kinesiology, eventually becoming a physical therapist to help others, especially fellow athletes.

Even on campus, Reguera is focused on his athletic connections. “If I could change something about Armijo, it would be to encourage the sports teams to have more fundraising and let them use that money for their sport,” he said. “A lot of sports teams don’t do enough fundraising which is why some don’t have as nice things as others. I feel like if the coaches are going to be coaching at Armijo, they should be doing some sort of fundraising or team bonding so kids can make longtime friends (hopefully) and have fun with their team instead of not having fun and not doing anything good for the program.” 

When he’s not participating in athletics, Reguera enjoys hanging out with his friends or fishing with his family. He has two brothers – Andrew (20), who was on the Armijo golf team when he graduated, and Tyler (28) – and a sister, Alyssa (26). Reguera also believes in giving back to the community when he can. “My role model is my mom because she’s done so much and I learn a lot from her,” he said.

On March 17, Reguera announced his commitment to Butte Community College in Oroville on social media to continue his baseball career and to keep the dream alive. “I soon hope to go play Division 1 baseball and I don’t care where it’s at,” he said. “I want to go to where I want to go, and that’s the MLB.”