Each year there are eight NCAA Division I baseball teams that compete in the final tournament of the season known as the College World Series. Every year those eight teams travel to Omaha, Nebraska for a chance to become National Champions. This year the tournament was special for one particular Santa Clara native, Joshua Caravalho.
The 21-year-old sophomore moved with his family from the California coast to Santa Clara during the middle of his years as a Little Leaguer. Caravalho would finish his Little League career at the old Santa Clara Homestead Little League. While his older sister Kathryn Caravalho previously shined for the Santa Clara Bruins, Joshua would star in his high school years for The King’s Academy Knights.
After graduating from The King’s Academy in 2021, Caravalho took his baseball talents to Chabot Junior College where he posted a rather pedestrian ERA of 4.60 as a freshman. However, what caught the eye of the coaches at Oral Roberts University were Caravalho’s 55 strikeouts in 45 innings of work and an opponent’s batting average of just .236.
“I’m really grateful for the coaching staff at Chabot. They told me when I was coming in, listen we’re going to give you a shot. Even though you are a freshman, you are going to get an opportunity,” noted Caravalho on his time at the Hayward junior college. “You’re going to have to capitalize on that or you’re not going to see a whole lot of time. I had 45 innings as a freshman which, at the junior college level, it’s rare for a freshman to throw that many innings.”
Carvalho parlayed his freshman year performance with an offseason training program in Texas to eventually get a near full ride scholarship at Oral Roberts.
“I came down to work at Elite Performance Labs, a baseball development program. The head guy there, Allen Moorhouse, I call him the pitching guru. I learned a lot about movement patterns with pitching.” remarked Caravalho. “He had a lot of connections and got me connected with a coach at a community college in Texas. They said they didn’t have any room on their team, but Oral Roberts is in need of a pitcher.”
In his first year as a Golden Eagle, Caravalho threw 52 and 2/3s innings with a 3.42 ERA and a .245 opponents’ batting average. His squad went an impressive 52-14 overall and 23-1 in conference play. While Oral Roberts came up short in the tournament, it was a special experience for Caravalho, who had dreamed of pitching on the big stage at Omaha.
“I just had to take it all in. I was looking around and was just like ‘wow.’ And after the game, I was thinking about it and I was like I’ve always been one of the pair of eyes in the crowd, looking at the guy standing on the diamond on top of the mound. But this time I was the guy standing on the mound in front of 30,000 people. Honestly, it still doesn’t feel real. That was one of the places I’ve always dreamed of pitching at.”