A dominant southpaw with a willingness to reach any goal that he wants, Cal Carver is nothing short of a dynamic pitcher for Northwestern State University of Louisiana baseball. Currently in his third season with the Demons, Carver can slice and dice batters without having a second thought on how he will do it.

Before NSU, the six-foot, three-inch left-handed pitcher out of San Antonio, Texas spent his freshman year at Wichita State University in Kansas. From the time he left WSU to transferring to NSU in July 2019, his travels landed him practically across the country, eventually landing Carver to his home in Natchitoches.

WSU had a new coaching staff come in and all of Carver’s coaches that were there left when Carver was there in the spring. Carver then found out he was going to transfer and hauled everything he had to travel across the country to find his new home.

“I packed my stuff up and I left in the morning,” Carver said. “That first night, I drove 14 hours to Columbus, Ohio to a hotel and started scheduling visits the next day.”

After that, Carver drove another 15 hours to Fort Scott, Kansas and started taking visits there Carver then went from Fort Scott and drove straight across to the other side of the state to visit Hutchinson, Kansas. He would then drive to Fayetteville, Arkansas, then to Monroe and eventually drove to Natchitoches to visit with head coach Bobby Barbier at NSU.

Throughout his travels, the support of his family made Carver’s journey worthwhile.

“My parents were extremely supportive of wherever I went,” Carver said. “If I had gone somewhere else, they’d have been just as supportive of me there as they are here in Natchitoches.”

Much of Carver’s success, he says, comes also from forming relationships with his teammates off the field to gain stronger chemistry on the field. Carver stuck with names like NSU second baseman Daunte Stuart, pitcher Jonathan Harmon and outfielder Gabe Colaianni and built his relationships around life and baseball.

In his time at Northwestern State, Carver produced tons of quality appearances for the Demons. On March 11, Carver struck out a career-high 11 strikeouts in five innings pitched as the Demons went on to win 20-3 over the Alcorn State University Braves.

The pressure to be a great college pitcher doesn’t seem to frighten Carver; it actually fuels his success in the process.

“I wouldn’t say too much of it has been a challenge,” Carver said.”If you can keep your head on a heavy set of shoulders and just always keep moving forward and try not to worry about those external factors as much, you’ll be able to get through things just fine.”