A year ago, Dax Whitney was the grim reaper of high school baseball in Idaho.

The 6-foot-5, 204-pound right-handed pitcher was nearly untouchable for Blackfoot High School, appearing in 12 games and allowing just two earned runs in 52.2 innings as a senior. Of 158 plate appearances against him, Whitney fanned 130 and recorded a 0.27 ERA.

Whitney, whose high school teammates called him “King”, was not only the No. 1 player in the state and crowned the Idaho Player of the Year, but also the No. 56 player in the 2024 MLB Draft. Only four right-handed high school pitchers were ranked ahead of him on MLB.com’s top 100 draft prospects list, with all four being drafted and signing for an average of $2.5 million.

Plenty of professional ball clubs would’ve been happy to draft and sign the lanky pitcher, who — at 19 years old — tosses a fastball that knocks on the door of triple digits.

A seven-figure contract was on the table, but Whitney chose college — more specifically, the No. 8 seeded Oregon State Beavers.

“A lot of it was me thinking about why I love playing baseball,” Whitney said. “(I love) being able to have a team and going to dominate with your teammates. I worried that if I was to go play pro ball, I’d just be working for myself and climbing the ranks.”

Getting Whitney to campus was a win for the Beavers as their top addition in the class of 2024, according to Perfect Game. The decision to go pro out of high school or not was the difficult choice, but choosing Corvallis was the easy part.

“I remember when I was younger, my travel ball team was at Buffalo Wild Wings,” Whitney said of his first memories of Oregon State. “I was looking at the TV, it was 2018 and I’m watching (the Beavers) win the (College) World Series. That was my first taste of college baseball… As the recruiting process started, they started talking to me. It just felt like a dream come true for me when I got my offer here.”

The dream turned into reality when Whitney hit campus in the fall. That reality meant a quick adjustment to baseball at not just the Division I level, but the level of one of the most revered programs in the nation.

Since getting to campus in the fall, Whitney says he’s gained 26 pounds, courtesy of the Beavers nutrition and strength staffs. He’s also begun fine-tuning his arsenal, with a change in his curveball grip being the biggest tweak.

“It’s so much more competitive for me,” Whitney said of his adjustment to college baseball. “I know I’ve got to be better than I was. In high school, I could rip a fastball down the middle and (they) probably weren’t going to hit it. Now I have to really execute, hit my spots, execute my pitches, think about what (one) pitch is setting up for the next one. It’s just a whole other level of advancement where everything plays off of each other.”

He may be drinking out of a firehose making the change, but Whitney has the confidence of his teammates.

“(Whitney’s) personality fits the role of someone who is going to play baseball for a long time,” Junior outfielder Gavin Turley said. “There’s highs and lows in this game, I think he’s ready for it.”

Third basemen Trent Caraway echoed the sentiment.

“(Whitney’s) got big league stuff,” Caraway said. “He’s got one of the best fastballs I’ve seen… (In lives) he’s gotten me, I’ve gotten him. He’s mostly gotten me thought. He’s good, he throws gas and can bang a slider.”

While Caraway didn’t divulge many details about facing the righty, Whitney was quick to explain his own “Welcome to campus” story.

“It happened last week,” Whitney said in January, laughing and explaining the situation. “I was doing pretty well, no one was really barreling the ball. Then in my last live, (junior outfielder) Easton Talt hit a home run off me… He hit it and I was like, ‘That’s gone.’”

Whitney has started 15 games this season with a 6-3 record and a 3.78 ERA in 66.2 innings pitched. He leads the team in strikeouts with 101 of them and has allowed 33 walks. Opponents are only hitting .220 off of the stellar freshman.

Most recently Whitney got the start in an elimination game against TCU on Saturday, May 31 where he threw six innings and gave up only two runs on four hits with 12 strikeouts and only one walk. The Beavers won 7-2 to keep their season alive.

OSU won two more elimination games on Sunday, June 1 with ease, downing Saint Mary’s 20-3 and then defeating USC 14-1.

The Beavers will go for the home regional win against USC with first pitch set for 3 p.m. Monday, June 2 at Goss Stadium.