EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsLOS ANGELES -- Before he reached base four times in the winner-take-all game that earned UCLA the Big Ten tournament title, and before the back-to-back conference player of the year accolades, Roch Cholowsky was a freshman struggling through his first 40 games in Los Angeles."I was probably hitting .250 and was making over 10 errors in the infield," Cholowsky recalls in the middle of UCLA's clubhouse. "And [the coaching staff] rode with me every day." Head coach John Savage "just wanted me to learn the game of college baseball and get some more at-bats and games under my belt."That support, he says, not only made his breakout sophomore season possible, but also helped "block out the noise -- people trying to pull me and tell me what I should be doing, go somewhere else and make some money in NIL." It made it easier to stay here, with the guys, the program ..."... and the beach," I offer.Cholowsky brightens up."And the beach! That's a big part of our off days. [Savage] doesn't like it," Roch says with a smile. "He always tells us a story about [ex-UCLA star] Gerrit Cole showing up after an off day, completely pink, sunburned, had to pitch! But we all go and have a good time.""He's always planning things," says second baseman Phoenix Call, who is also Roch's roommate. "Cookouts. He'll do things like that, which is really important as a leader, and make sure everyone will be there."If on-field production and a take-charge personality have helped Cholowsky assume a leadership role, it doesn't hurt that some teammates are also close pals from years back. He and center fielder Will Gasparino have known each other since they were 6 years old; Bruins catcher Cashel Dugger first met Cholowsky in seventh grade. All three grew up steeped in the world of baseball, with parents who worked in the sport.And there's another friend accompanying Cholowsky on this baseball journey -- in spirit, but truly more than that. Nathan Rogalski was a teammate of Cholowsky's who wore No. 21 when he was a pitcher on their U16 travel team. They quickly become friends."A very, very nice person," Cholowsky says. "There's a lot personality-wise I took with me just from him."Rogalski's untimely death would compel Cholowsky to honor and remember his former teammate. He does so in multiple ways -- writing Rogalski's number in the infield dirt at short and writing it with his bat every time he steps to the plate -- to bring Rogalski along with him as Cholowsky pursues the dreams that not so long ago, they both shared.START WITH THE NAME that has been dominating college baseball, a slugger from the 2-hole and a magician at short; the name that seems pluperfectly suited to Chicago, whose woebegone American League team holds the No. 1 pick in July's MLB draft; the name that rings so memorably out of the mouths of the preteen PA junior announcers who take the mic for the fifth inning at UCLA's Jackie Robinson Field: Roch Cho-LOW-sky! "When we were naming our son, my husband did not want a Jr.," explains Tika Cholowsky, whose spouse is Dan Cholowsky, a Hall of Famer at Cal who played nine years in the minors and is a major league scout. "His name is Daniel John. My husband threw out names, and he had Thor, Maximillian, a couple others. Daniel Thor Cholowsky ... wasn't sure that was gonna work. So, I threw out my dad's [French-Canadian] middle name, which was Roch. And it stuck. When Roch was born, I introduced him as, 'Here's Daniel Roch.' Dan was the one who introduced him as Roch. We never called him Daniel."Classic Roch suited him fine growing up as a two-sport athlete in Chandler, Arizona. Yet as much as he thrived at quarterback under the Friday night lights at Hamilton High -- alt-Roch? -- he had already chosen baseball."We knew that he loved it; he wanted to be at every single practice early," Tika says.Roch would even join his father on scouting trips that helped expand his baseball mind."[My dad's] not only watching how they play, but how they act," Roch says. "There's a lot of guys that he'd tell me to what they were doing and some things that I can add to my game."His father would also teach him not to pull everything."My dad would always tell me, 'Hit the ball the other way for the first few rounds of BP, and the last round you can let loose if you want to.'"It seems to have worked."He has power across from pole to pole -- it's not just pull power," Savage says. "His hand-eye, his bat path, his zone discipline -- he doesn't chase much. He has a very good idea of the strike zone.'"Now 21 years old, 6-foot-2 and 202 pounds in his junior year, Cholowsky has again enjoyed the kind of season at the plate and infield that gets people to say his name out loud in L.A. ... glam Roch! ... all while for the first time being a focus of scrutiny -- and chirping -- in the wake of his All-Everything 2025."I mean, I love it," Roch says. "I feel like I play better when there's commotion going on. If another guy's jawing at me on the other team or if there's something that upsets me, I tend to play better for whatever reason. ""There's nothing better than your best player playing the way he plays," Savage says. "He was the offensive player of the year, he was a defensive player of the year [in the Big Ten in 2025] . That combination you just don't see. ... I think the bigger the stage and the bigger the confrontation, he just thrives in that."This season -- one that has seen UCLA rip off a 27-game winning streak and set a school mark for regular-season victories -- Cholowsky has keyed multirun, season-defining comebacks against Oregon and Michigan State and shrugged off an early-spring slump with a bust-out performance in a sweep of archrival USC. His 20-plus homers include a grand slam against TCU and Roch's favorite swing of 2026, a game-tying, two-out two-run shot at Mississippi State to send the game into extras."An out-of-body experience," Roch says. "I don't recall anything until I was rounding third. ... In those moments, I tend to black out a little bit."Funny, considering that as shortstop, Roch is notoriously hyperaware."He just gets to balls ... not a lot of other people get to," Dugger says. "His transfer, his glove work, ... it's pretty special."While he has evoked comparisons to MLB shortstops such as Troy Tulowitzki and Dansby Swanson, Roch himself says he modeled much of his game on the sure-handed Bruins alum and longtime San Francisco Giant Brandon Crawford.Then there's Roch's incessant chatter."My freshman year, I was already a very vocal person on the field," he recalls, "but one of the older guys had told me, 'Say two, three things every pitch to stay locked in.'""He's talking to the pitcher," Savage says. "He's telling the pitcher to pound the zone. He's talking to the center fielder. I mean, he has things in order."And for Roch, putting things in order begins as soon as he takes the field at the start of a game and before every at-bat, and it's drawing that No. 21.NATHAN ROGALSKI WAS a hard-throwing left-hander out of Oklahoma. In the summer of 2021, he and Roch were 16-year-olds on the same travel team, both with dreams of making it to the majors. Affable, outgoing and a little goofy, Nate wore No. 21 and had a way of connecting with just about anyone."Just a great person," Roch says. "I played with him for one summer, and we stayed in contact after that. He was just a joy to be around.""He always had fun, you know?" remembers Nathan's father, Rob. "He always managed to make people laugh. Especially ... the more reserved players on his team, he would break down that barrier of shyness."Along with their many hours on buses, the two would hang out together with Nathan's parents on the beach in Florida, and later, in Arizona with Roch's family."I think they would've been lifelong friends," says April, Nathan's mother.In January 2022, Nathan fell ill while at a tournament in Houston, and his condition began to deteriorate when he returned home; a spinal tap confirmed the worst."It was cloudy and it wasn't pretty," April recalls. "So I knew right away he had meningitis. He had been vaccinated against all the meningitis that, you know, the vaccinations that are out there. But the kind he had was not good ... and it took him quick."Nate was 17 when he died."Devastating," April says.Then, after a few moments: "We've had a lot of support. We're doing OK, and we get to see the kids that he was close to ... do wonderful things.""[Roch] came home and said, 'Mom, I need this tattoo,'" Tika recalls. "I said, 'No, you're 16. You are not getting a tattoo.' And he said, 'I need it. I need this ... to be able to bring him with me.' He has the Roman numerals XXI on his left wrist, because Nate was a left-handed pitcher.""He sent us a picture right away," April remembers, "and he started a trend, because a lot of the kids did it and we were so honored."In time, April and Rob also got tattoos."That's when I realized what an impact Nathan had ... I didn't realize how close they were until he sent that to us," April says.April sent Roch a No. 21 necklace that he wears to this day.So when Roch takes his position at shortstop, in the infield dirt on the edge of the outfield grass, "I just write his initials and his number. I do it when I walk into the box, too -- 21. He can't play baseball anymore, so I bring him with me and keep him on the field with me every day."There are so many days in baseball still ahead for Roch, when he'll have the chance to make new friends and forge new memories. As he caps his outstanding UCLA career and this record-setting Bruins season by seeking success in the tournament -- and perhaps, a national title -- he won't be doing it alone."Not only is he an outstanding player -- he's just an outstanding young man," April says. "If he wants to have Nathan a little bit with him, I'm all for it."
