After bringing 18 new players onto the 2025 roster, Villanova baseball has been off to a steady start.
The Wildcats are 12-10 and have a .545 winning percentage. Compared to this time last year, when the team had a 7-14 record with a pct of .333, the season is looking much brighter.
A major factor in this improvement is graduate pitcher Bobby Olsen, a transfer from Nebraska. After a nine-strikeout performance against NJIT on March 14, the Big East awarded Olsen with Pitcher of the Week.
“[Olsen] changes everything for us,” Villanova head coach Kevin Mulvey said to D1Baseball.com after the NJIT game. “If you got a guy on Friday that can go out and pitch seven innings every time or more, it really sets you up, puts the bullpen at ease and gives you a lot more options. Even when he’s down a pitch or he doesn’t have his best stuff, he’s still able to compete in the zone with multiple pitches for strikes, control the running game and keep us in the game and give us a chance to win. He’s done that with regularity.”
Olsen had his best performance as a Wildcat at NJIT. He pitched eight innings, striking out nine and allowing just six hits to secure a narrow, 2-1 victory for Villanova.
“It takes a lot of trust, and I do trust the guys behind me,” Olsen said. “The guys behind me are making great plays, and it gives me a lot of confidence being able to pitch with them. We have a really talented group this year, and it’s really freeing mentally just to be able to pitch to contact and let the guys work behind you and pick you up.”
Olsen, a native of Powdersville, SC, had an unique route through college baseball before landing at Villanova for his final year on the mound. He played three seasons at Brown before spending 2024 at Nebraska.
Olsen’s skills were evident since he was a sophomore in high school, when he threw Powdersville High’s first no-hitter in school history. Throughout his high school years, he helped lead his team to two regional and district titles. Olsen finished his senior year with a 1.30 earned run average and 56 strikeouts.
After being named all-State and all-Region and graduating in 2019, Olsen committed to Brown, though his first two seasons were interrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In his last year at Brown, Olsen was ranked the No. 10 pitcher in the Ivy League and had a career-best 11 strikeouts against Penn in 2023.
Villanova was interested in recruiting Olsen the first time he entered the transfer portal, when he left Brown after his third season. But Olsen decided to transfer to Nebraska, appearing in 13 games for the Cornhuskers.
“It wasn’t really what I thought it was going to be in Nebraska,” Olsen said. “I didn’t play as much as I wanted to. There were a couple of other factors that went into that, but going into my last year I wanted to find a better fit.”
Olsen returned to the transfer portal after a disappointing season in the Big Ten Conference. Across 8.1 total innings on the mound, he recorded nine strikeouts and posted a 10.80 ERA. This time around, Villanova caught his interest.
“Villanova was perfect for me,” he said. “Coach Weaver and Coach Mulvey recruited me that previous year as well, before I went to Nebraska. So I reached out to Coach Mulvey again and just ended up coming to Villanova. It was the best choice I’ve made.”
Now, as one of the 18 new players on Villanova’s roster, Olsen is already making an impact. He’s tallied 37 strikeouts across six games and pitched 35.2 innings.
“This has been the easiest team to get adjusted to,” Olsen said. “We do have a lot of transfers, but it was almost seamless. It took us just a few weeks [to adjust], and we’re all really close with each other. This team is honestly the best team that I’ve been on, not just talent-wise, but chemistry-wise, as well.”
With April fast approaching, and baseball season in full swing, Big East play is set to ramp up, bringing a new level of competition for Villanova.
“We’re just sticking to the process,” Olsen said. “There’s no reason to change anything. We’re going to keep playing well, making little adjustments here and there, but Big East play is no different than what we’ve been doing now. We’re going to approach it the same way, and keep playing with the people we have and playing with the kind of fight that we’ve had all season.”
