His Turn to Shine
Mar 05, 2025 | Baseball, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
One of Kansas State's most dangerous offensive weapons through 11 games is a transfer from Columbia University who at times could've never dreamed that he'd hit a home run against Michigan at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, or launch a homer against No. 2 LSU at Riders Field in Frisco, Texas — or any baseball field, for that matter. As a sophomore, he underwent Tommy John surgery. As a junior, he tore his ACL and meniscus in practice. As for his senior season? Didn't happen. He was recovering from a torn hip labrum.
Meet K-State senior designated hitter Seth Dardar, whose story will be told and retold this season as his impact continues to grow for the Wildcats, 6-5, who in a span of seven days beat No. 5 Arkansas (3-2), beat Michigan (5-1), beat No. 22 TCU (10-2) and fell to No. 2 LSU (8-5) in 10 innings.
By the end of the season, if not sooner, he'll be talked about as one of the feel-good stories of the Big 12 Conference.
All because he refused to give up.
"After these past games, I'm able to look back on what I did, the home runs I hit, and it means a little bit more," Dardar says. "It was four or five years of a downward trend. Now it seems like everything is coming full circle. I'm finally getting my turn to put everything on display."
Dardar, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound strong left-handed hitter who throws right, has started all 11 games. He ranks second on the team and 10th in the Big 12 with a .400 battling average, ranks second on the team and ninth in the Big 12 with a .510 on-base percentage, and ranks second on the team and sixth in the Big 12 with a .775 slugging percentage.
He is slashing .400/.510/.775 with a team-high six doubles and three homers that he'll forever remember, along with the big team win against the fifth-ranked Razorbacks that sent things in motion.
"It'd been almost two years since I'd played any baseball at all," he says. "After that first win against Arkansas, the first words out of my mouth were, "That's the most fun baseball game I've ever played in my entire life.'"
There could be more excitement on the way for K-State, which reached the Super Regional last season (after beating Arkansas in Fayetteville), and is led by seventh-year head coach Pete Hughes, whose 826 career victories are the most by any current Big 12 head coach and 13th amongst active NCAA Division I Power 4 head coaches.
Hughes, for a second straight season, went on attack mode and challenged his squad with the most daunting non-conference schedule in Division I, and after some growing pains the Wildcats have made a Kansas Statement. Never before in K-State history had the Wildcats dismantled three nationally ranked foes — No. 5 Arkansas (D1Baseball), No. 25 Michigan (Baseball America) and No. 22 TCU (D1Baseball) — in a three-game stretch.
After 11 straight games away from Manhattan to start the season, the Wildcats make their home debut when they face William & Mary (4-7) in a three-game set beginning Friday at 3:00 p.m. at Tointon Family Stadium.
"I can't wait," Dardar says. "It's going to be awesome. Honestly, we've been practicing in (Tointon) all year and there have been some really great players come through the program, especially from last year's team, and there are big shoes to fill, but we're ready to do it. Our goal is to make the next step and make it to Omaha, and we're prepared to do that."
That would be an amazing story.
Dardar has an amazing story of his own.
A kid from New Orleans, Louisiana, Dardar grew up playing baseball. A 2020 graduate from Holy Cross High School, he hit .381 with 10 doubles, three triples and three home runs in 2019. An impressive showing in front of 100 coaches at a baseball camp in Long Island, New York, was Dardar's big break and he signed with Columbia figuring a degree in Civil Engineering from an Ivy League school would look good if baseball didn't work out. Dardar didn't play his senior year of high school because of COVID restrictions, and he didn't play his freshman season at Columbia because the Ivy League cancelled its baseball season due to COVID. Then came the rash of injuries starting with the Tommy John surgery. After tearing his ACL and meniscus his junior season, doctors recommended surgery, but Dardar relented, telling them, "I haven't played in over three years and will do anything to get out on the field."
The result?
"I wore one of those big offensive lineman knee braces all year," he says. "I had a pretty decent season. That's how I got looked at by K-State and some other schools when I entered the transfer portal."
The Ivy League does grant athletic eligibility to graduate students, meaning that Dardar needed to find a new college home to finish his playing career. But first, came the torn hip labrum right before his senior season.
"So, the past three years, I've had three surgeries," he says. "My junior year, I was lucky enough to play through the injury and get surgery on my knee after the season, but I didn't play last year. I was still recovering from hip surgery coming into this fall, but I came in hard-headed, tried to push through everything and go 100%. The coaches had to pull me back and say, 'Just relax. We know you're a good player.' That meant so much to me."
A twist of good fortune landed Dardar in Manhattan. Although he didn't play his senior season at Columbia, he started 34 games his junior season, and the two-time Ivy League Player of the Week batted .299 with 40 hits in 134 at-bats, eight home runs and 32 RBI. It was while rehabbing his hip in July 2023 after entering the transfer portal that began fielding a barrage of e-mails and texts from Division I schools.
"I returned to school at Columbia and (K-State assistant coach) Thomas Hughes called me that Monday and said, 'We want you to come on a visit,'" Dardar says. "I had visited Tulane and LSU and had visits three weekends in a row, but I had nothing that weekend. Thomas said, 'We'll get you here this weekend.'
"I came to K-State and absolutely loved it. Before I was thinking LSU because that was the hometown team, and I was infatuated with LSU. But when I visited here, I loved the coaches, the team culture, and the town of Manhattan blew me away. I also visited Notre Dame, Duke and Virginia Tech, and after the visit to Virginia Tech, I knew K-State was the place for me. I knew it in my heart. I called Coach Hughes and said, 'There's no place else I'd rather be.'"
The question becomes this: What kept Dardar coming back to the baseball field during this excruciatingly frustrating and at times painful journey?
"There was definitely a lot of low points that a lot of people don't know about besides the people closest to me like my mom, dad, sister, close family and friends," he says. "Obviously, my love for baseball, it would've been really hard to step away and say, 'Dang, it is over? Is this possibly it?' I pushed on and kept going. My love for baseball made it impossible to step away.
"Pushing through injury and recovery, just my faith in God, that's who I was able to lean on, and that helped me to get over different battles and low points the past few years."
And now Dardar is here carrying a .400 batting average while helping lead one of the nation's hottest teams through the non-conference season. Looking for a good comeback story? This one perhaps trumps them all. He enjoys his coaches. He enjoys his teammates. He loves it all. And he's so grateful.
"I've learned that I'm a resilient person," he says. "I feel like I can go through almost anything at this point given what I've been through. I feel like I've proven to myself that I can withstand almost anything, and whatever is thrown my way, I won't falter. I'll put my head down and just go through it."
One of Kansas State's most dangerous offensive weapons through 11 games is a transfer from Columbia University who at times could've never dreamed that he'd hit a home run against Michigan at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, or launch a homer against No. 2 LSU at Riders Field in Frisco, Texas — or any baseball field, for that matter. As a sophomore, he underwent Tommy John surgery. As a junior, he tore his ACL and meniscus in practice. As for his senior season? Didn't happen. He was recovering from a torn hip labrum.
Meet K-State senior designated hitter Seth Dardar, whose story will be told and retold this season as his impact continues to grow for the Wildcats, 6-5, who in a span of seven days beat No. 5 Arkansas (3-2), beat Michigan (5-1), beat No. 22 TCU (10-2) and fell to No. 2 LSU (8-5) in 10 innings.
By the end of the season, if not sooner, he'll be talked about as one of the feel-good stories of the Big 12 Conference.
All because he refused to give up.
"After these past games, I'm able to look back on what I did, the home runs I hit, and it means a little bit more," Dardar says. "It was four or five years of a downward trend. Now it seems like everything is coming full circle. I'm finally getting my turn to put everything on display."
Dardar, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound strong left-handed hitter who throws right, has started all 11 games. He ranks second on the team and 10th in the Big 12 with a .400 battling average, ranks second on the team and ninth in the Big 12 with a .510 on-base percentage, and ranks second on the team and sixth in the Big 12 with a .775 slugging percentage.
He is slashing .400/.510/.775 with a team-high six doubles and three homers that he'll forever remember, along with the big team win against the fifth-ranked Razorbacks that sent things in motion.
"It'd been almost two years since I'd played any baseball at all," he says. "After that first win against Arkansas, the first words out of my mouth were, "That's the most fun baseball game I've ever played in my entire life.'"
There could be more excitement on the way for K-State, which reached the Super Regional last season (after beating Arkansas in Fayetteville), and is led by seventh-year head coach Pete Hughes, whose 826 career victories are the most by any current Big 12 head coach and 13th amongst active NCAA Division I Power 4 head coaches.
Hughes, for a second straight season, went on attack mode and challenged his squad with the most daunting non-conference schedule in Division I, and after some growing pains the Wildcats have made a Kansas Statement. Never before in K-State history had the Wildcats dismantled three nationally ranked foes — No. 5 Arkansas (D1Baseball), No. 25 Michigan (Baseball America) and No. 22 TCU (D1Baseball) — in a three-game stretch.
After 11 straight games away from Manhattan to start the season, the Wildcats make their home debut when they face William & Mary (4-7) in a three-game set beginning Friday at 3:00 p.m. at Tointon Family Stadium.
"I can't wait," Dardar says. "It's going to be awesome. Honestly, we've been practicing in (Tointon) all year and there have been some really great players come through the program, especially from last year's team, and there are big shoes to fill, but we're ready to do it. Our goal is to make the next step and make it to Omaha, and we're prepared to do that."
That would be an amazing story.
Dardar has an amazing story of his own.
A kid from New Orleans, Louisiana, Dardar grew up playing baseball. A 2020 graduate from Holy Cross High School, he hit .381 with 10 doubles, three triples and three home runs in 2019. An impressive showing in front of 100 coaches at a baseball camp in Long Island, New York, was Dardar's big break and he signed with Columbia figuring a degree in Civil Engineering from an Ivy League school would look good if baseball didn't work out. Dardar didn't play his senior year of high school because of COVID restrictions, and he didn't play his freshman season at Columbia because the Ivy League cancelled its baseball season due to COVID. Then came the rash of injuries starting with the Tommy John surgery. After tearing his ACL and meniscus his junior season, doctors recommended surgery, but Dardar relented, telling them, "I haven't played in over three years and will do anything to get out on the field."
The result?
"I wore one of those big offensive lineman knee braces all year," he says. "I had a pretty decent season. That's how I got looked at by K-State and some other schools when I entered the transfer portal."
The Ivy League does grant athletic eligibility to graduate students, meaning that Dardar needed to find a new college home to finish his playing career. But first, came the torn hip labrum right before his senior season.
"So, the past three years, I've had three surgeries," he says. "My junior year, I was lucky enough to play through the injury and get surgery on my knee after the season, but I didn't play last year. I was still recovering from hip surgery coming into this fall, but I came in hard-headed, tried to push through everything and go 100%. The coaches had to pull me back and say, 'Just relax. We know you're a good player.' That meant so much to me."
A twist of good fortune landed Dardar in Manhattan. Although he didn't play his senior season at Columbia, he started 34 games his junior season, and the two-time Ivy League Player of the Week batted .299 with 40 hits in 134 at-bats, eight home runs and 32 RBI. It was while rehabbing his hip in July 2023 after entering the transfer portal that began fielding a barrage of e-mails and texts from Division I schools.
"I returned to school at Columbia and (K-State assistant coach) Thomas Hughes called me that Monday and said, 'We want you to come on a visit,'" Dardar says. "I had visited Tulane and LSU and had visits three weekends in a row, but I had nothing that weekend. Thomas said, 'We'll get you here this weekend.'
"I came to K-State and absolutely loved it. Before I was thinking LSU because that was the hometown team, and I was infatuated with LSU. But when I visited here, I loved the coaches, the team culture, and the town of Manhattan blew me away. I also visited Notre Dame, Duke and Virginia Tech, and after the visit to Virginia Tech, I knew K-State was the place for me. I knew it in my heart. I called Coach Hughes and said, 'There's no place else I'd rather be.'"
The question becomes this: What kept Dardar coming back to the baseball field during this excruciatingly frustrating and at times painful journey?
"There was definitely a lot of low points that a lot of people don't know about besides the people closest to me like my mom, dad, sister, close family and friends," he says. "Obviously, my love for baseball, it would've been really hard to step away and say, 'Dang, it is over? Is this possibly it?' I pushed on and kept going. My love for baseball made it impossible to step away.
"Pushing through injury and recovery, just my faith in God, that's who I was able to lean on, and that helped me to get over different battles and low points the past few years."
And now Dardar is here carrying a .400 batting average while helping lead one of the nation's hottest teams through the non-conference season. Looking for a good comeback story? This one perhaps trumps them all. He enjoys his coaches. He enjoys his teammates. He loves it all. And he's so grateful.
"I've learned that I'm a resilient person," he says. "I feel like I can go through almost anything at this point given what I've been through. I feel like I've proven to myself that I can withstand almost anything, and whatever is thrown my way, I won't falter. I'll put my head down and just go through it."
Players Mentioned
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