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University of Wisconsin-Superior Athletics

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Wisconsin-Superior
Yellowjackets
TJ Oakes

TJ Oakes

TJ Oakes commences his fifth season as head coach of the UW-Superior baseball team in 2026. He was named to the position on July 21, 2021.

UW-Superior capped the 2025 season with an overall record of 18-21, coupled with a Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) mark of 12-9. Postseason honors were bestowed upon seven Yellowjackets, including five players on the All-UMAC First Team. Additionally, Kevin Rahe garnered regional recognition, being named to the D3baseball.com All-Region 9 First Team. 

The ‘Jackets compiled a conference record of 14-7 and an overall record of 22-19 under Oakes in 2024. This marks the second straight season with a winning percentage above .500 and over 20 wins in program history. Oakes guided seven players to the UMAC postseason awards list, including pitchers Zach Romans, Aiden Pfeifer and Ethan Coady, alongside Brian O’Dwyer, Tanner Voight, Isaac Fugere and Payton Steiner. Additionally, UWS earned the first tournament berth across the conference, ultimately earning a spot in the UMAC championship for only the third time in program history.

In the 2023 season, the Yellowjacket skipper led his squad to an overall record of 21-15, coupled with a 16-5 record in the UMAC. During the month of April, UWS went on a five-game winning streak with the pitching staff hurling 39-consecutive innings of shutout baseball, which is a Yellowjacket program record. It was also the first time in program history where the Yellowjacket baseball team won 20 games in a season, and the first time since 1975 UWS finished a baseball season with a record above .500.

Oakes led the Yellowjackets to a 19-21 overall record in 2022, including a 13-8 mark in Upper Midwest Athletic Conference play. UWS defeated Minnesota Morris, 8-2, on the final day of the regular season to sew up the final berth in the UMAC tournament, and beat the top two seeded teams, Northwestern and Crown, 11-5 and 9-3, on consecutive days, to earn a place in the UMAC championship for just the second time in program history. 

Under Oakes' tutelage, Superior improved its earned run average by more than 2.5 runs from 2021. Additionally, Oakes guided six players to All-UMAC recognition, including left-handed pitcher Ryan Rodriguez, catcher Isaac Fugere, utility player Bryce Flanagan and infielder Ben Rhodes to first-team honors. Rodriguez (7-5, 2.99 ERA, 102 strikeouts) and Fugere (.353, 11 doubles, 34 RBIs, .563 slugging percentage) also earned second and third team all-region honors, respectively, from the American Baseball Coaches Association. The Yellowjackets were also recipients of the ABCA's Team Academic Excellence Award, posting a 3.32 team GPA for the 2021-22 academic year. 

Prior to his arrival at UWS, Oakes spent six seasons as the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at Saint Mary's in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) from 2016-21. During that time, the Cardinals had a record of 121-91-1 (.570), and in 2021 Saint Mary's won the MIAC tournament championship, qualifying for the NCAA tournament. Before joining the staff at Saint Mary's, Oakes coached a pair of high school seasons at Legacy Christian Academy, where he spent one season as an assistant coach before becoming the head coach in 2014.
 
Oakes had a storied playing career. He was a three-year starting pitcher at Minnesota, earning All-Big Ten Third Team honors as a freshman and a sophomore and All-Big Ten First Team honors as a junior. He was drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the 11th round of the 2012 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft and played two seasons in the Rockies organizations before embarking on his coaching career.

In his Gophers' career -- with whom he threw the first pitch in Target Field history on March 27, 2010 against Louisiana Tech -- Oakes was 16-11 with a 3.03 ERA in 270 innings over 44 appearances, including 42 starts. He finished 30th nationally in strikeout-to-walk ratio as a junior in 2012 at 5.2. Oakes went 10-10 with a 4.34 ERA in 37 starts in two minor league seasons with Tri-City of the Northwest League (2012) and Asheville of the South Atlantic League and Modesto of the California League (2013).
 
A native of Jordan, Minn., Oakes graduated from Minnesota's College of Education and Human Development in 2014, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in sports management. 
 
  Oakes at UW-Superior
Year W L Pct.
2022 19 21 .475
2023 21 15 .583
2024 22 19 .537
2025 18 21 .462
Total 80 76 .512