BRENTWOOD, N.H. - A month-and-a-half into his first year of college has been enjoyable for Jacob Wiberg, who committed to Sacred Heart late in the summer.

“It’s been great to get away from home,” the Exeter High School graduate said. “It’s an opportunity to be around people with the same goals as me that are willing to put in the work.”

It is quite a contrast to what the 30th-rated 2022 outfielder in New England had been expecting to be doing at this time in the fall.

“I went to a camp at Trinity College with Maine, Stetson, UMass Lowell and Sacred Heart,” Wiberg reflected back to his first meeting with interim head coach Wayne Mazzoni on June 26. “I threw 88-89 at the camp and he started talking to me and we scheduled a visit. Things moved quickly.

“I went to the camp as a 2023, but coach asked if I would go (to Sacred Heart) as a 2022. I was going to take a gap year and go to Holy Cross in 2023, but the idea of not having a real sense of direction for a year was not really appealing. I was planning to commit there in late summer.”

Admittedly, it made for a difficult few months.

“It was definitely stressful at the end of high school,” Wiberg explained. “I didn’t have a great senior season and I’m thinking am I going to even play baseball in college. I applied for post-grad at Andover and Phillips Exeter but there was a waiting list at both.”

As it turned out, the 18-year-old made the decision to begin college this fall at Sacred Heart after being extended an offer in late summer.

“Sacred Heart has been great,” Wiberg related. “They have a new coaching staff and we’re pumped up to turn things around. The team chemistry is a ton better from what I have heard from a lot of the guys that have been through it.”
Being part of the  Northeast Conference program at Sacred Heart, which now has Pat Egan as head coach after a hiring that took place in late July, is just what Wiberg was looking for at the next level.

“I went to a camp there and I showed out which was the best thing that I could do,” Wiberg noted. “I was the fastest off the mound, I ran a good 60 and I hit one or two over the fence to show my overall ability in the game. The fact that they lost some players opened up a roster spot. I was recruited as a two-way, but now I’m mostly an outfielder. It’s hard to know where I’m at in the coach’s mind, but I’m still hoping to have a chance at pitching.”

In reality, Wiberg is very grateful to be part of a college baseball program.

“Baseball has always been a huge part of my life,” Wiberg explained. “It’s been my main sport and as soon as I knew about college baseball I wanted to do it. At 12 or 13U, one of my coaches was Ken Harring, the head coach of UMass Lowell. I practiced there and started thinking that I wanted to do this someday.”

But it did not easily happen.

“At the beginning of my recruitment I went to a few PBRs and got my numbers in and got a lot of looks from different schools, but they were schools that were not a good fit for me,” Wiberg explained. “I wasn’t getting any help from my coaches so I took it into my own hands with the PBR numbers. I wasn’t expecting things to come to me.”

Fortunately, it worked out in the end with a commitment to the university in Fairfield, Ct., 31/2 hours from Wiberg’s home in New Hampshire.

“What a huge relief for me,” Wiberg said about making the decision to go to college now rather than wait a year. “It’s even a bigger relief for my parents. For me it meant time was ticking, I had to get through all the paperwork and make sure I was in the right shape to be the best player possible right away.”

A business economics major who finished high school with a 3.6 GPA, Wiberg made a big discovery along the way to his current life as a college student-athlete.

“I found out you have an opportunity to do good things if you can self-motivate,” Wiberg concluded. “You have the ability to get in extra work, or if you choose to be lazy you’ll fall behind. If you choose to be the best every day you will be rewarded.”