The Royals (40-12) ran into the buzzsaw that was the LSU Shreveport Pilots in the Shreveport Bracket of the NAIA Opening Round in 2025. LSUS went on to win the World Series and finished out the year with a perfect 59-0 record.
This year, Johnson was a perfect 3-0 through the Salina Opening Round Bracket after fighting through the Appalachian Athletic Conference, which featured another World Series squad, Tennessee Wesleyan. The team was able to navigate the AAC and the Opening Round in large part to a roster led by upperclassmen who have been together for almost all of Serrano’s tenure.
The Royals’ starting lineup has just one player who’s not a junior or senior. No player in the order has a batting average below .265. The one sophomore in the lineup, outfielder Luke Wilson, leads the team with a .369 batting average. He’s struck out just 12 times in 203 at-bats across 52 games this season.
The offense isn’t one that’s predicated on power. The team has hit just 32 home runs this season, which was seventh in the AAC. Instead, it’s fueled by getting on base and moving the runners at a high clip. A lineup Serrano described as “West Coast style” baseball emblematic of his California-based coaching background.
As for Johnson’s pitching staff, the team finished the season third in the AAC in ERA (4.56). The staff’s biggest weakness is also arguably its biggest strength.
The Royals’ three primary starters, senior Colby Reynolds, sophomore Jacob Jacome and graduate senior Tyler Barfield, pitch deep into games. The trio have combined to comprise 240 of 424 innings pitched for the staff.
“I think the starting pitching has been good (and bad),” Serrano said. “And what I mean by bad is, they were so good for us throughout most of the year we weren’t able to get real deep into pitching. There was many weekends that we would go and we would pitch five guys throughout the whole weekend. … It’s been good and bad with the starting pitching, but that’s been a strength (for us).”
It’s been a quick turnaround for Johnson from AAC basement dwellers to World Series competitors. Now, Johnson will look to complete the “rebuild” and become champions.
> Johnson
Location: Kimberlin Heights, Tenn.
Nickname: Royals
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.dnews.com ’
