Trey Zahursky, a jack-of-all-trades, revved and ready for Skyline College baseball season

Now, as a redshirt freshman at Skyline College, he’s still intent on showcasing his versatility between second base and shortstop. But the former NCAA Division I scholarship athlete — he redshirted at University of Nevada in 2019 — is looking to pave a road back to the DI ranks, and he knows his signature versatility can only help him in this respect.

“As a baseball player, the longer I can stay in the middle infield the better,” Zahursky said.

With the community college baseball season opening Saturday, Zahursky will take the game any way he can get it. The 21-year-old has seen his ups and downs on the diamond over the past two years. He never played at Nevada, though he did, of course, find a new positional role to fill as a bullpen catcher. But last season, bouncing back at Skyline, was certainly one of the ups, as he was batting over .400 for a 16-4 Trojans squad.

Then, on his 20th birthday, the first wave of cancelations due to the coronavirus pandemic struck. And while he and his fellow Trojans stayed sharp in hopes of returning within a few weeks, the dire news was delivered when one of his teammates made a stunning announcement to the team.

“’Dude, they just canceled the College World Series!’” Zahursky remembers the voice saying, to which he said his kneejerk reaction was: “This is weird. This is obviously a lot bigger than we expected.”

Skyline is opening the shortened season with just 15 players on roster, with a majority of players opting out to preserve the year of athletic eligibility. Zahursky, however, is not one of them, mainly because he would lose a year even if he opted not to play. As a Division I kickback, his five-year eligibility clock started in 2019. So, can’t play past 2023 whether he plays this year or not.

“He’s playing because he has to play, because he’s running out of years,” Skyline manager Dino Nomicos said.

Zahursky could conceivably return to Skyline next season. But that isn’t the plan, he said.

“My goal is absolutely to get to a Division I, and I’ve talked to some schools,” Zahursky said. “And things are going to start moving fast here in the coming weeks and the coming months.”

Zahursky’s first taste of the Division I world was bittersweet. Nevada proved a long way from home, and Zahursky admitted he wasn’t ready to go from being a big fish in the small pond of Capuchino, to being a teenager facing 22-year-olds throwing mid-90s fastballs.

“I think that summer I just didn’t prepare the way I should have, and it got the best of me,” Zahursky said.

Not that taking a redshirt prevented Zahursky from punching the clock at the diamond. He still practiced with the team, hit every day, and even caught bullpens. After the season was through, though, the decision to return home to San Bruno was a quick one.

“I had a great learning experience there, not just about baseball, but about growing up,” Zahursky said. “It was my first time on my own. … And I met a lot of great guys, and the coaches were great guys, but it just wasn’t a great fit for me at the time. It was getting expensive.”

When the pandemic hit, Zahursky employed the same approach he did during his redshirt days. When quarantines prevented him and his teammates from lawfully playing on Trojan Diamond, Zahursky said they got booted from several local diamonds, including while playing long toss — for social distancing purposes — at Burlingame’s Washington Park.

Then he turned to his girlfriend, Victoria Lopez, who had a unique solution — a batting cage in her back year. Lopez was a cheerleader, not a ballplayer, when the two met at Capuchino. However, her older sister, Valentina, used to play softball at Cap, and left a dilapidated backyard batting cage in her wake. So, with a little sprucing up the backyard digs, Zahursky went to work there to keep his baseball chops sharp.

“I didn’t let the situation get the best of me,” Zahursky said. “In the time we were off campus, not allow to practice, I wouldn’t let myself get behind.”

Now, Zahursky is one of five preseason All-Americans on the Skyline roster, along with pitcher Dylan McDonald, infielder Jack Mettam, and outfielders Noah Marcello and Andrew Roy.

“We’ll have a decent little team,” Nomicos said, though the emphasis is on “little,” especially with just five pitchers on roster. “It’s just the strain is going to be on the mound.”

Despite the weirdest two years in modern baseball history coinciding with Zahursky’s time at Skyline, though, he is still glad to be home. And, he might just get to add some more versatility to his baseball card as there’s a chance, at some point, he will have to eat some innings on the mound.

“Haha,” he said via text, “there’s a chance I might have to.”