It’s been more than six years since that first chilly January campus visit to Concordia. A lifetime’s worth of memories and events have filled the space during the college career that has followed for Caden Bugarske. The highs and lows have included being scratched from his first junior varsity start due to a missed class, starting the game that sent the Bulldogs to the 2021 NAIA World Series, Tommy John surgery, a gap year spent working at Chick-fil-A and then his return as an essential member of the 2026 pitching staff.
Yes, Caden’s still here, along with another fellow member of the ’21 NAIA World Series team in Alex Johnson. Playfully, their teammates razz them in regard to their status as the program’s elder statesmen. So that song from the 20th century came out when you were going to high school, right?
Says Bugarske, “It’s funny to look back on when we were freshman and sophomores and there were these fifth years. These guys are so old. They’re like 23. What are they doing here still playing baseball? Now I’m that guy.”
Bugarske is still here because he wouldn’t have it any other way. Sure, he could have done without the elbow pain and the subsequent surgery in April 2024, but that’s all part of his story. Bugarske and Johnson can relate. Johnson underwent Tommy John surgery months earlier (December 2023) and has followed a similar six-year path. Together, they help front perhaps the deepest pitching staff in the GPAC. Both possess the same desire to play baseball as long as they possibly can.
Just a kid who spent most of his adolescence in Northern California, idolizing San Francisco Giants like Madison Bumgarner, Tim Lincecum and Buster Posey, Bugarske is back to doing what he loves in 2026. He undoubtedly had some rust to knock off. He made only two starts in 2024 before sitting out the entire 2025 season. Bugarske took the ball in the ’26 season opener with mixed results. There have been peaks and valleys, but the 6-foot-2 right-hander is beginning to sharpen up, as evidenced by his allowing just three runs over his past two starts (11.1 innings with 18 strikeouts).
He would rather be serving up his pitch mix of fastballs and splitters (and sometimes changeups and cutters) as opposed to chicken sandwiches and waffle fries, but he’s not one to complain. A steady diet of Chick-fil-A grilled chicken sandwiches and salads helped tide him over as he recovered from surgery. Bugarske had already completed his degree in Business Administration in 2024, but he wasn’t going to walk away with baseball eligibility still on the table.
“I knew I wanted to stay in baseball,” says Bugarske in shrugging off all doubt about his decision to play the long game. “Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to play professional baseball. I wanted to be a big leaguer. I feel like this gives me the best shot to become the best pitcher I can be. If I had gone to a different school, I wouldn’t have gotten the same opportunities. I love it here. It was a lot easier to come back here and have a little bit of comfort here and a good support system.”
Says Dupic in explaining Bugarske’s importance to this team, “He’s been through it, so there’s a sense of confidence there. There’s an ability to bounce back if something doesn’t go your way. The depth is great for our pitching staff. We’ve had a couple of unfortunate injuries, so having Alex and Caden pitching so well in conference play sets a foundation to build the rest of our pitching staff around.”
The circumstances that led Bugarske here have convinced him that this was meant to be. Caden was born in Los Angeles to parents Aaron and Jennifer. When Caden was five years old, the family relocated to Northern California, where it spent a decade before settling in Boerne, Texas. Caden lived out the final three years of his prep career at Boerne-Samuel V. Champion High School.
His passion for baseball gravitated Bugarske to the Texas Baseball Ranch, a facility known for developing pitchers, specifically their velocity. By this point, Bugarske was all in on maximizing his pitching talents. He had given up on being a catcher by the time he reached middle school. Bugarske’s right arm was his best chance at a college baseball scholarship. Fortunately for Bugarske, the Ranch’s founder and owner, Ron Wolforth, has plenty of connections, one of them being Coach Dupic. That connection sparked a recruiting visit for Bugarske, who had mostly flown under the radar of college coaches after a solid high school career that ended abruptly due to COVID-19.
On his visit to Concordia in January 2020, Bugarske feared he had not impressed Dupic with his pitching session inside the on-campus hitting center. As Bugarske recalls, he hit 82-to-83 miles per hour during his audition of sorts. A week later, he had given his commitment to Concordia.
“I chose Concordia because I really love it,” Bugarske said. “The sense of family and the sense of community – I really liked it. I wanted to play for a competitive team and a team that was going to win and have a chance to do something special. I really liked the culture that Coach Dupic had here. I bought in.” Those words ring true to Dupic, who commented, “We were a really good fit for giving him the type of culture and environment that he was really looking for.”
Initially, Bugarske was placed on the junior varsity roster as someone who could potentially make a varsity impact during the historic 2021 season. Bugarske was about to make his first JV start but that same day, he overslept and was late getting to class (via video as COVID-19 restrictions were set in place). Dupic held him accountable and wouldn’t allow him to pitch that evening.
Bugarske learned quickly and was later called upon to pitch on the varsity after injuries occurred. He wound up appearing in nine games and posted a 2.49 ERA in 25.1 innings. As long as he stayed healthy, Bugarske had earned a varsity role. In the clinching game of the 2021 NAIA Opening Round at Bellevue, Bugarske threw the first 3.1 innings in helping rescue a taxed pitching staff. Later that month, he appeared at the NAIA World Series. Says Bugarske, “I got to say I pitched in Lewiston, Idaho, my freshman year of college.”
As Dupic pointed out, “I don’t know if you would ever find anybody who’s ever done that at any place. For your first college start to be the game to go to the World Series as a freshman after starting on JV is so incredibly abnormal.”
Over his sophomore and junior seasons (2022-23), Bugarske made 22 starts and was a dependable innings eater. Injury came in 2024 in what would have been his final collegiate season. That’s just not the way it was supposed to happen. Bugarske looked like he was ready to reach a new level when he felt pain in his forearm. He knew immediately this wasn’t good.
As he recalled, “I remember throwing a slider and feeling a pull in my forearm and going immediately to the bullpen and sitting down, taking my hat off. I teared up a little bit. ‘Is this really how my career’s going to end?’ Tommy John isn’t a very fun thing to go through.”
With the surgery occurring in late April of 2024, Bugarske made the decision to take it slow and plan his return for 2026. If he rushed it, he may have been able to get back sometime in 2025, but he wanted to go out on a full season. God willing, Bugarske will make that happen this spring and reach the ceiling he feels he hasn’t yet touched.
Regardless of results, the positive thinking Bugarske won’t be deterred. The totality of his Concordia Experience has been more than he imagined. It’s also more than baseball. Says Bugarske, “It was probably the best thing that happened to me. If I didn’t move to Texas, I definitely wouldn’t be at Concordia. I wouldn’t have met Ron Wolforth. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t even be playing college baseball. For a lot of facets in my life, it’s definitely the best thing that’s happened to me.”
Caden’s love for Concordia apparently rubbed off on his younger brother Layne, who stands at 6-foot-4, 265 pounds. Layne made his way to Concordia as a football student-athlete in the fall of 2023. As their schedules allow, Caden and Layne get together to play Wii or PlayStation 5 – or just to hang out.
That brotherly dynamic has added to the special nature of Caden’s college experience, successes, hardships and all. If ever he does feel a bit down, he can look to his left forearm, which displays two tattoos very meaningful to him. One is a centipede (that resembles the stitches on a baseball) that reminds him to keep moving forward and to continue growing. The other tattoo is the letters “TTFB,” for Through Trials Faith Builds. As Bugarske says, “Through faith in Jesus, all things are possible.”
Added Bugarske of his time at Concordia, “Concordia’s awesome. There is a lot of love and passion. I feel like I’ve become a lot better man. Through the years here, I’ve definitely become a lot more mature and have grown as a person.”