It’s been more than 2½ years since top 2017 MLB June Amateur Draft prospects Jeren Kendall and Kyle Wright first joined the baseball team and began taking classes at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., but a college freshman's first impressions are almost always the most long-lasting.

The fall of 2014 was an exciting time to be a part of head coach Tim Corbin’s program at Vandy, simply because of what had transpired in the spring and early summer of 2014. That was when the Commodores returned to the College World Series in Omaha for the second time in four years, and this time left with the national championship after besting Virginia 2-1 in the best-of-3 championship series.

That Vandy team was led by sophomore shortstop Dansby Swanson, who would become the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 MLB June Amateur Draft. When the incoming freshmen – the outfielder Kendall and the right-handed pitcher Wright among them – first met their veteran teammates that had helped the Dores win that championship a few months previous, they were welcomed into a culture of excellence that resides in the upper echelon of the college baseball universe.

“With me not really understanding the next level of baseball yet, I didn’t really have any expectations, and that was kind of good for me,” Kendall told PG over the telephone this week when asked about his first impressions in 2014. “I wasn’t really expecting anything out of anybody; I was just kind of going with the flow and keeping my mouth shut and just listening.

“But coming into that group of guys that were coming off that big year … those guys really made it easy for us freshmen to come in and just kind of be there,” he said. “Those guys were driving the bus and they had a really firm grip on how to run this place; they did a really good job of it.”

Wright, too, had the sense he was about to embark on a grand new adventure.

“It was a big deal; I guess that’s the best way to say it,” he said, also speaking with PG over the telephone this week. “When I came in as a freshman, I didn’t really expect to pitch a whole lot just because of all those guys in front of me who had had good years and who had had big-time experiences even late in (2014).

“There was a lot of excitement, and coming in I was just expecting to fit into my role, whatever it was, and I think that was the best mindset I could have had.”

Now, in the spring of 2017, the juniors Kendall and Wright are the leaders – the linchpins – of this year’s Commodores team. The careers of both have been sterling, and Perfect Game ranks Kendall the No. 5 overall prospect in the upcoming MLB draft, with Wright coming in at No. 9. Vanderbilt is the only team in the country with two top-10 draft prospects on its roster.

“I was just a young kid from Wisconsin trying to play baseball further than high school and now I’m in this position; it’s pretty crazy to think about,” Kendall said.

Added Wright: “Sometimes I don’t even realize it because it’s something that I never really could of thought of. But it’s really cool just to be where I’m at today and there are a lot of people that I owe gratitude to for helping me be in the position that I’m in.”

Vanderbilt returned to the CWS in 2015 and once again advanced all the way to the three-game championship series where they faced the Virginia Cavaliers for a second straight year. The series again went to a third and deciding game but this time the Cavs prevailed, denying the Commodores a second straight national championship. It was all kind of overwhelming for the freshmen on the squad.

“I remember talking to some of the other freshmen at the time and just saying, ‘Can you believe that we’re sitting here in game 3 of the national championship and we just graduated from high school (a year ago),’” Kendall said. “It was a crazy experience, but everything happened so fast I couldn’t really wrap my head around it.”

The Commodores were unable to advance out of their own Nashville Regional last season, which leaves the juniors like Kendall and Wright longing to return to Omaha next month for what would be the program’s third CWS appearance in four years. There’s a lot of work to be done, but with projected first-rounders like Kendall and Wright now driving the bus, it would be foolish to count them out.

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THE SPEEDY, LEFT-HANDED HITTING JEREN KENDALL GRADUATED FROM Holmen (Wis.) High School in the spring of 2014 ranked the No. 67 national prospect (No. 1 Wisconsin) in his class. The Boston Red Sox selected him in the 30th round of the 2014 MLB June Amateur Draft, not early enough for him to reconsider his commitment to Vanderbilt.

“Coming out of high school and having the draft (pick) come late, I obviously had a big decision (to make) but I was pretty set on Vanderbilt; that was probably the best decision of my life,” Kendall said. “I can’t imagine being in pro ball and trying to learn the stuff that I’ve learned here at a more personal and structured level.”

Highlights of a six-event Perfect Game career that stretched from June 2013 through July 2014 include earning a perfect 10.0 grade at the 2013 PG National Showcase in Minneapolis. He was also named to the all-tournament team at the 2013 PG WWBA Kernels Foundation Championship in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, playing with the Reds Midwest Scout Team and at the 2014 18u PG WWBA National Championship at PG Park South-LakePoint in Emerson, Ga., playing with the Midland Redskins.

“I don’t think I’d be in this position if I wasn’t at least getting out and getting my looks,” Kendall said. “Obviously, being a kid from Wisconsin, when you look at the (history) I’m really not supposed to be where I’m at right now. I played baseball when it was warm and I played hockey when it was cold; that’s part of the life up there.

“But just getting out, and maybe not always performing at my best but at least seeing that kind of (competition) and getting used to it as quickly as I could was definitely a huge deal for me.”

He made an impact immediately as a freshman in 2015, hitting .281 with eight home runs and 40 RBI while playing in 60 games (56 starts); he also stole a team-high 19 bases in 23 attempts while posting a .394 on-base percentage. He got his first taste of college summer-ball in 2015, playing in 20 games for the Cotuit Kettleers in the Cape Cod League.

It was during the 2016 season when Kendall established himself as a bonified early round draft prospect in 2017, earning honorable mention recognition on the PG/Rawlings College All-American list. He slashed .332/.396/.568 with 16 doubles, eight triples, nine home runs, 59 RBI, 63 runs and 28 stolen bases spent last summer playing for the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team; he began the 2017 season as a Perfect Game/Rawlings College Preseason First Team All-American.

After 44 games this season, the 6-foot, 190-pound Kendall is slashing .301/.384/.579 with a team-high 13 home runs and 34 RBI to go with a team-high 15 stolen bases.

“Jeren emerged as a key component of our 2015 Omaha team as a freshman and has steadily grown as a player,” Vandy head coach Tim Corbin said before the start of the 2017 season. “His physical skills are different, uncommon and fun to watch. He can impact a game with his feet, glove, arm and bat.

“His best baseball is ahead of him, for sure. He is mature and very consistent in everything that he does on and off the field; his disposition makes him fun and easy to coach.”

In a PG/Rawlings College player scouting report published online April 24, a PG scout wrote: “Arguably the top position player in all of college baseball, Jeren Kendall is a supreme talent with tools that likely have MLB scouting directors wanting to take him in the first-round of the MLB Draft. Kendall is an excellent athlete … (and) the power is real both by the stats he has put up in his college career and by the strength throughout his swing.”

The reports are, indeed, glowing, and all indications point to them also being spot-on. Kendall can’t ignore all the “early first-round” buzz he’s hearing and feeling, and is intent on doing his job to the best of his abilities while helping the Commodores play deep into June, weeks after the draft has taken place.

“If anybody with this opportunity ever tells you that he’s fully blocked out the draft, I think he’d be lying to you,” Kendall said. “It’s kind of hard to do that with all this social media and everything going on, but I think me and Kyle have done a pretty good job with this whole thing. And us just sticking together and being close with each other has definitely helped a lot, too.

“We don’t feel like we need to do anything special or try to be something that we’re not,” he continued. “The relationship we have with each other has become kind of a big deal.”

It was finals week at Vanderbilt this past week – another pretty big deal at the academic powerhouse – and Kendall, a Psychology major, took his last final exam on Wednesday. He still plans on playing baseball for Vandy for weeks to come, of course, but also took a moment to reflect on his three years in Nashville.

“Here at Vanderbilt, it’s not always about baseball – class comes first and there’s all kinds of other things going on,” he said. “Baseball is important but it’s not our number-one (priority), which is kind of nice. I think that kind of helps with the comfort level of the younger guys coming in, too, because it’s not 110 percent baseball and we’re not always worried about baseball.”

But now, with his classwork in the rearview mirror, he can actually afford to have a one-track mind.

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PERFECT GAME RANKED KYLE WRIGHT AS THE NO. 196 OVERALL national prospect (No. 4 Alabama) when he graduated from Buckhorn High School in Huntsville, Ala., in 2014, and he went undrafted in that year’s MLB June Amateur Draft.

His eight-tournament Perfect Game WWBA career (2011-14) with the Nashville-based Knights Baseball National team resulted in him being named to three all-tournament teams. He joined Kendall at the 2014 18u PG WWBA National Championship in Emerson, and managed to outshine his future Vandy teammate by being named the Most Valuable Player while playing for the event champion Knights Baseball 18u National team.

“Every baseball experience that I had in high school has helped me in one way or another, whether it was just getting better or getting the travel experience and playing against different guys from different areas,” Wright said. “I feel like every aspect of it – particularly playing with the Knights – I’m very thankful for.”

Wright got on campus at Vanderbilt in the fall of 2014 and immediately became Corbin’s go-to guy out of the bullpen during his freshman season in 2015. He made 29 appearances that spring – three starts – and finished 6-1 with a 1.23 ERA and 62 strikeouts in 58 2/3 innings pitched.

Corbin moved him into the starting rotation last season and the sophomore flourished, finishing 8-4 with a 3.09 ERA and 107 strikeouts in 93 1/3 innings. Like Kendall, he too played for Team USA last summer and flourished there, as well.

Kyle Wright (Vanderbilt Athletics)

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IT IS LIKELY THAT TOP 2017 MLB JUNE AMATEUR DRAFT PROSPECTS Jeren Kendall and Kyle Wright are still at least a couple of years away from playing in their first Major League Baseball game, but this spring in Nashville, Tenn., they’ve been getting a taste of what it might be like to be in a big-league pennant race.

The unranked Commodores haven’t had anything handed to them, particularly in league play. And while their streak of 11 straight NCAA Regional berths doesn’t appear to be in jeopardy as this is written, at least a couple more SEC series wins to finish the season would certainly help alleviate any anxiety.

Vanderbilt improved to 27-17 overall after its 8-4 non-conference victory over Austin Peay Tuesday night but the problematic aspect of its record is the 10-10 mark in Southeastern Conference play.

That .500 record is good for third-place in the SEC East Division behind Kentucky (14-7) and Florida (13-8), and places the Commodores a half-game ahead of fourth-place South Carolina (10-11). Auburn (14-7), Mississippi State (14-7), Arkansas (13-8), Texas A&M (13-8), LSU (13-8) and Mississippi (11-10) from the SEC West all have better conference – and overall – records than the Dores.

But Vandy is on very solid ground in the RPI rankings, currently sitting at No. 25 behind Florida (No. 6 RPI), LSU (No. 15), Arkansas (No. 16), Mississippi State (No. 17) and Auburn (No. 18) from the SEC, and that No. 25 ranking certainly bodes well for their postseason fortunes.

The Commodores have three, three-game league series remaining: at home with Missouri this weekend, at No. 16 Arkansas May 12-14 and at home with Alabama May 17-20 before playing at the conference tournament in Hoover, Ala., May 23-28.

“I think that it’s just baseball doing its thing, you know,” Kendall said of the Dores’ somewhat up-and-down season to date. “It’s the type of game that a lot of people don’t understand and a lot of people can get frustrated playing it. The whole point of it is to accept the process and stay within ourselves, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that.”

Kendall feels like the team continues to get better and better with each passing game and he senses that everyone in the dugout is excited to get out on the field every day to see what can be accomplished in the moment; his teammate agrees:

“There have been some ups and downs, but in a way that’s kind of good just because we haven’t really reached our full potential yet,” Wright said. “I think we have a lot more growing to do, so I still see a lot more out there for us. We’re still in a decent position … and as these last few weeks come up we just have to play as much consistent baseball as we can.

“When you get to this point now, every game matters,” he continued. “We really have to focus on and lock-in on each game that we play because they all matter and they’re really important now.”

Individual seasons are never going to play out in the same fashion as previous ones, simply because there is a new group of players every year and different situations and scenarios are always presenting themselves.

Makeup and team chemistry changes for the opposition, as well, so each new season can present new and unexpected challenges, but if there is a bottom line, it is that this group of Commodores is very comfortable in its own skin and with what it’s accomplished on the field.

Wright believes it all starts with Corbin and the life-lessons the 15th-year Vanderbilt head coach teaches. His promotion of leadership skills is a major aspect of his message that Wright has taken to heart, and its led to the junior right-hander taking better control of situations when there is a need to do so while also making him a better person overall.

It’s a belief shared by everyone on the team, and that creates an attitude and an atmosphere that usually leads to a lot of success on the field and, in this case, a likely 12th straight NCAA Regional bid.

“In the locker room, the guys are great,” Wright said. “We know we have plenty of talent to make a deep run into the postseason and I think that mindset has always been there, it’s just a matter of us playing good, consistent baseball.”

Guys like Kendall and Wright are all-in in their efforts to relive that championship feeling they first felt in the fall of 2014 and came within one win of experiencing again in the spring of 2015. Winning their last three SEC series – and picking up a nonconference victory at No. 2 Louisville on May 9 – would do a lot for their team’s confidence heading into the SEC Tournament and an NCAA Regional.

“Coming off my freshman year and playing with all those older guys like Dansby (Swanson), they made this whole college baseball thing look pretty easy,” Kendall said. “So, with this year … it’s a little bit different but we’re excited for whatever happens and we’re going to take advantage of it.

“It’s really always about how you play at the end of the year, and I think we’re on the come-up right now,” he concluded. “Not that we were ever down, I just think we’re building our confidence the further we go and we’re pretty excited to see what we can do in these next three weekends coming up.”