The young UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky was named the 2025 College Baseball Player of the Year on November 5th.
Cholowsky started his college baseball career in 2024 with the Bruins. In 2020, Roch finished his freshman year of High School at a fresh 15 years old. Coach John Savage had been watching him long before any other colleges have. One phone call from Coach Savage, and Cholowsky committed right then and there.
Coach Savage took a huge chance on the young shortstop and didn’t get let down.
“We just knew he had a chance to be special,” Savage said.
Cholowsky has always been an athlete, playing multiple sports growing up. Through his elementary and middle school days, you could find Roch playing baseball, basketball and football. Once Cholowsky got to high school he decided to just stick with football and baseball. Cholowsky loved football and was pretty good at it during high school, and his dad always enjoyed watching him play football even though he was a baseball guy. In the end, although the apple does not fall far from the tree, Cholowsky decided to play college baseball and make that his passion.
Cholowsky is happy with his decision to commit to UCLA and play baseball.
“I wanted to go somewhere I could develop as a player for three to four years and also play winning baseball,” he said.
Cholowsky was the absolute face of college baseball this year and undoubtedly will be for the rest of his career. Along with winning the College Baseball Player of the Year, he also won conference player of the year which hasn’t been won by a Bruin since 1998. The 2025 season was his sophomore season, and even though he’s still an underclassmen, he is able to be a leader and carry his team all the way. Cholowsky batted a .353/.480/.710 with 23 home runs along with 74 RBI’s, all in 66 games. Cholowsky is expected to be a first round pick in the 2026 MLB Draft and has really caught the eyes of big level coaches.
With his history making season, he never plays the game for himself, but always to win and for his team.
“I just wanted to have a winning season and have a chance to get to Omaha,” he said.
