Joe Gallagher remembers all the times his mom, Susan, used to drive him and his three siblings, brother Matt and sisters Samantha and Grace, around for their various baseball or softball games.
She never played sports but named him after Joe Montana, her favorite NFL player. Gallagher played baseball, basketball, and football growing up but fell in love with baseball.
He was always bigger than the other kids, even at Del Campo High in Sacramento, Calif., where he later played two yers at Sierra Community College, about a seven-hour drive from home.
“I was raised by a single mom, four kids all on her own,” Gallagher said. “All her kids are on college scholarships and playing sports. She’s a director of a health agency. My mom is my motivation.”
After three years at Hawaii Pacific, Gallagher graduated last year with a communications degree and with one season left entered the NCAA transfer portal. The 6-foot-4, 225 pound third baseman brings not only intimidating size but much needed power-hitting to the Vulcans, who were out-homered, 18-7, last year.
“I wanted something different. I achieved all I wanted at HPU. I wanted a change of scenery and see another program,” he said. “Hilo is a lot different, but I’m loving it. The community support is a lot better. It’s a lot slower, but it’s a perfect place for me to be here.”
His dream is to be an MLB player, and the one thing scouts always search for is raw power, something Gallagher has but didn’t always display at HPU. Last year, he hit .217 with three homers and 15 RBIs in 83 at-bats. In 2020, he batted .268 with three homers and 11 RBIs in 56 at-bats.
Gallagher’s hitting philosophy is from the book of former MLB player and Shark alumni Benny Agbayani.
“My hitting coaches the past three years were Chester Wilson and Benny Agbayani,” he said. “Benny said to hit the fastball early in the count, keep it simple. Hitting is hard enough as it is. Trust your talent to score runs. That’s the goal to get runs on the board. They didn’t bring in a 6-4 guy to hit singles.”
The Vulcans have enough smaller guys who’ll hit singles and get on base and hopefully the mashers like Gallagher, senior outfielder Chris Aubort (.286, three homers, 15 RBIs, 105 at-bats), and junior first baseman Kobie Russell (.224, one homer, 12 RBIs, 67 at-bats) can drive them home.
Brett Komatsu, a 2016 Hilo graduate, will get his chance to start in center field. He batted .571 but had just seven at-bats. He’s been at UHH since 2018 after one season at Simpson University. He’s on track to becoming a firefighter, but baseball is his primary focus.
“It’s been a long time coming for sure. I learned when I first got here to wait your turn. It’s what coach Kal (Miyataki) told me,” Komatsu said. “I’m excited for Friday to see how we do and perform.”
In his first year, Komatsu fell hard and had to learn to pick himself back up. When he did, he had a new perspective.
“When I first came into the program, I was young, 19 years old, and didn’t do well academically. I had a 1.5 GPA, something I’m not proud of,” he said. “As time goes on, you learn things from coach Kal and the other coaches. The past couple of years, I’ve been on the Dean’s list (3.5 GPA). Something just clicked, and I decided to do better for myself. That’s more of an accomplishment than anything in baseball. It showed how much growth I’ve achieved over the years from coming into the program.”
One motto all the seniors pass down to the next class is to leave the place better than you found it. Komatsu draws much of his inspiration from former center fielder Kyle Yamada, who was a little guy at 5-7, 160 pounds.
But the left-handed swinging Yamada, from Loomis, Calif., batted .317 with an .851 OPS and a team-high .424 on-base percentage and scored 34 runs in 2019, his senior season and one of UHH’s biggest years in program history.
That year, the Vulcans finished 26-19 to break an NCAA record 26-year losing streak that covered the NAIA, Division I and II levels. Last season, the Vulcans qualified for the postseason for the first time since 1989 when they went to the NAIA World Series under former coach Joey Estrella and went 0-2.
Komatsu came in at 120 pounds, rail thin, but worked in the weight room to add 35 pounds of muscle. He also spent countless hours in the hitting cage.
“Kyle was one of the most significant players. He was a leader on and off the field,” Komatsu said. “I watched how he went about his way, the little things to see it and learn from it. I wanted to emulate that.”
UHH was missing a power-hitting, right-handed bat in the PacWest automatic qualifier pod series in Azusa, Calif., where the Vulcans finished 1-3 against Azusa Pacific and Academy of Art and were out-homered, 9-3.
Best of all, Gallagher balances out the lineup with Aubort and Russell, a pair of left-handed sluggers.
If all goes well, one newcomer (Gallagher) and one first-time starter (Komatsu) will leave the program better than they found it.