Growing up, Connor Stephens’ favorite sport was football.
As a quarterback, he fell in love with the pigskin and the gridiron, finding success leading his team as the squad’s field general.
But when he arrived at Golden West High School, Stephens continued to play quarterback; however, the sport didn’t provide that same feeling he enjoyed as a younger player.
So after his sophomore football season, he walked away from football.
With an itch to still compete, he turned to baseball, commiting 100% to the sport.
Today, with his entire focus on the diamond and mound, Stephens is the leader on the pitching staff, serving as the Trailblazers’ ace for the second straight season.
In the 42nd annual Tulare/Visalia Pro-PT Invitational on March 30-31, Stephens helped guide Golden West to an undefeated 4-0 record in the lower division bracket with wins over Arvin, 7-2, Golden Valley, 11-1, California City, 15-2, and Corcoran, 7-1.
The Trailblazers (8-9, 1-3) allowed only six runs among the tournament’s 10 lower-division squads.
Stephens put together a dominant performance in the six-run victory over Corcoran, tossing a complete game with 10 strikeouts. He gave up just four hits and a run, which was unearned.
“Baseball wasn’t even my first sport,” Stephens said. “I was a football guy. I played football until my sophomore year, then I kind of just fell out of love with it. I started playing baseball. I was pretty good at it. I realized I might be able to do something with it, and I kind of rode with it. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since.”
Finding baseball
Football didn’t work out, but luckily for Stephens, that led him to zero in on baseball.
With the gridiron no longer part of his sports life, he was able to throw all his energy at baseball, which meant honing in on pitching and enjoying America’s pastime.
That meant learning from Trailblazers pitching coach Steven Dodson and Golden West head coach Jeff Housman.
Dodson, a former Tulare Union and Fresno City pitcher who graduated high school in 2002, helped tutor the 6-foot-4 Stephens.
Stephens also got to work with Housman — a former Golden West star pitcher who spent six seasons playing professional baseball, even reaching the Triple-A level twice in 2004 and 2005. The Milwaukee Brewers drafted Housman in the 33rd round of the 2002 MLB Draft from Cal State Fullerton.
In his first full season as a starting pitcher during his breakout junior year in 2025, Stephens emerged as Golden West’s ace, firing a team-high 48 strikeouts in 50 2/3 innings. That led to 11 wins and a playoff appearance in the Central Section Division IV postseason.
In 11 starts, Stephens concluded his junior campaign with a 3-4 record, two complete games, a pair of shutouts, and a 3.18 ERA.
As the 15th seed in the 2025 section postseason, Stephens anchored Golden West to an upset 10-4 playoff win at No. 2 Sierra in Tollhouse. In that first-round postseason victory, he threw a pair of strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings, allowing just three runs to pick up the win on the mound.
“It was really nice to be able to focus on one thing and put all my effort into one thing,” Stephens said. “I spent a lot of time with the coaches in the offseason, working on stuff, and just trying to develop as best as I can. Overall, I was just trying to help this team win games.”
Although football didn’t work out, it still motivated Stephens on the bump.
“Once I realized that baseball was the last thing that I had to hold on to from playing sports as a kid, then I really started taking advantage of it,” Stephens said. “Every moment was an opportunity.”
‘No fear’
With a 6-foot-4 frame, Stephens has the pitching size that college scouts covet.
Stephens doesn’t know where his height came from, considering his dad is about 5-9, and his mom is 5-4, but his length and size do give him a slight edge on the hill.
“It’s honestly a huge blessing,” Stephens said. “It helps me out a little bit out there, I say.”
Dodson, the Trailblazers’ pitching coach, has worked with Stephens for two seasons.
Dodson has seen Stephens make strides as a pitcher from his first to second year.
What’s that improvement numbers-wise?
Through seven starts, as of April 7, he has hurled 51 strikeouts through 41 1/3 frames with three complete games, a 4-3 record, and a 1.86 ERA.
Those marks are all career-highs.
“I think at the beginning of last year, we weren’t sure where he was going to fit in,” Dodson said. “And he kind of took that No. 1 spot on our pitching staff almost right away. This year, he’s taken more control as a team leader. He’s come a long way. I don’t think anything is surprising this year from what we’ve seen so far.”
The praise for Stephens didn’t stop there.
“He soaks things up,” Dodson said. “The information we give him, he soaks it up very quickly, and he can implement that into the game very quickly. He’s taken over more this year of calling his own game, where last year, we called games for him. He’s calling pitches for himself this year. We don’t really have to interrupt.”
With Stephens’ baseball IQ and knowledge of the game, Housman and his coaching staff, including Dodson, have given their ace the ability to shake off original calls or change the pitch selection.
Is that freedom given to all pitchers?
“No,” Dodson said. “He throws his game. It’s awesome for us. If we really want a specific pitch, we’ll give it to him, but for the most part, he makes the right decisions. We have confidence in whatever he’s going to throw. It’s going to be a quality pitch. He’s learning the game more and more every time he goes out there.”
That’s been the case this season.
In a 5-1 East Yosemite League win over Porterville on March 18, Stephens tossed a career-high 14 strikeouts in a two-hitter, complete-game outing.
In his last three starts, victories against Porterville and Corcoran, and a 7-3 loss to Redwood, Stephens has combined for 32 strikeouts. He had eight strikeouts versus reigning EYL champion Redwood and surrendered just two earned runs, both against the Rangers, in that three-game stretch.
“Our big thing with Connor is that within the game, his goal is to dictate action within three pitches,” Housman said. “He gets strikeouts, sometimes, because he’s ahead of the count, and gets himself in good situations. He’s come a long way because he’s not afraid to pitch to contact and be aggressive within the zone early.”
That’s a big reason why Golden West, which opened the 2026 season with a 2-6 record, has won six of its past nine games entering the week of April 6.
“On the mound, he definitely has no fear,” Dodson said. “It’s nice we have a guy we can send out once a week, knowing we have a chance to every time he’s out there. Every time he’s out there, we know we have a good chance of winning that game.”
This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: How Golden West’s Connor Stephens found his passion on the baseball mound
Reporting by Vongni Yang, Visalia Times-Delta / Visalia Times-Delta
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
