Austin Ames begins his third season as the Cougars Director of Baseball Operations after being hired by Nathan Choate in July, 2023.
Last season, WSU took three of four from Big Ten Conference opponent Iowa and swept San Diego State at Bailey-Brayton Field. The series-opening win over Iowa played in Texas was career win No. 100 for Choate. A pair of Cougars earned All-Mountain West Conference honors including second-team catcher Will Cresswell who became WSU’s first all-league catcher since 2021 and was later drafted in the 18th round by the Toronto Blue Jays, the first Cougar catcher drafted since 2015. In the classroom, WSU posted a 3.35 team GPA en route to earning an ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award for the second straight season under Choate. Five players earned CSC Academic All-District honors, 12 were named MWC Scholar-Athletes and 21 were named to the Academic All-MWC Team. The 2025 season also saw the fan experience at Bailey-Brayton Field improve with the addition of new backstop netting along with the addition of beer and wine sales throughout the ballpark.
In his first season, WSU won the Round Rock Classic title, swept Arizona State for the second time in program history, recorded its first win at UCLA since 2014 and first win at Stanford since 2016. Three players earned All-Pac-12 honors led by ace righthander Grant Taylor who finished the season with 99 strikeouts, the seventh-most in WSU single-season history. In the classroom, the Cougars earned ABCA Academic Excellence accolades after setting program records with a 3.32 team GPA in the fall semester and a 3.29 overall team GPA for the school year. WSU also set a program record with five CSC Academic All-District selections while 17 were named to the WSU President’s Honor Roll and 12 earned Pac-12 Spring Academic Honor Roll honors.
Ames arrived at Washington State after working the 2023 summer as an operations intern at Team USA in North Carolina and as an operations intern for Major League Baseball at the Jackie Robinson Training Complex in Vero Beach, Florida. Prior to working with MLB, Ames was a ticket sales associate for the St. Louis Cardinals during the 2022 season and worked in a number of roles for the Southeast Missouri State Athletic Department (2020-22).
Ames earned his bachelor's degree in sport management from Southeast Missouri State in 2023.
