The St. Cloud Rox are cruising through its twelfth season in the Northwoods league – with an illustrious history, too. With being the winningest franchise in the long-tenured summer collegiate baseball league, comes a shoal of memorable talents that come through the central Minnesota town, year in and year out. 

In 2023, the name Jackson Hauge has been embroidered into the memories of Rox fanatics. Hauge – Rox first basemen, a redshirt junior from Minnesota State Mankato – has announced his presence with authority. 

Through 47 games, Hauge currently leads the Rox roster (of qualified hitters) in batting average (.302), slugging percentage (.423), on-base plus slugging percentage (.840), runs batted in (41), doubles (12), and the list goes on. 

Not to mention the fact that he lands in the top 15 of all qualified hitters in the Northwoods league in each of those listed categories as well. 

And it’s really shown at the halfway point. Since the beginning of the second half of the season, he’s already more than doubled his extra-base hit count. 

By the fifteenth game of the second half, he had taken the six extra-base knocks he had from the first half and churned out an extra eight more to compliment it. Among those fourteen extra-base hits total, were three home runs as well, which is good for second on the team. 

“His mental game is untouchable,” said Nick Studdard – long-tenured hitting coach of the St. Cloud Rox, said. “I mean, we made some small tweaks to his swing, but he pretty much has used the reps to really come into his own.”

But he’s been this guy for a while. St. Cloud just helped him prove it on a bigger stage. For the Minnesota State (Mankato) Mavericks this past junior season, he hit .357, with 76 runs batted in, and 16 home runs. All team leads. 

Those numbers aren’t just crooked for his roster, but among some of the best in the Northern Sun Athletic Conference altogether. 

But the path to replicating this stardom in St. Cloud was not a straight line. For Jackson Hauge, patience was a virtue. 

Growing up playing youth baseball in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, then moving to Anoka High School later on, Hauge felt he was a late bloomer.

“I really didn’t get noticed until my junior year of high school,” Hauge said. “Mankato was one of the very first teams to show interest.” 

Once he visited there, Mankato was a lock for the Anoka High School product. 

“I visited [Mankato], loved the people, the staff, the town, and they just continue to prove that.”

But this is where the patience came in. “I didn’t really get to play until [junior year].” Upon entering college, Hauge made the sensible decision that many true freshmen make in order to enhance their development as a college athlete – to redshirt his first year. 

But, in 2021, sophomore year came around, and he broke his hand. Hauge played in just four games with only five at-bats, meaning he started his college career with two straight seasons with virtually no baseball under his belt. 

That’s when the Northwoods came calling. But the phone call he got wasn’t from St. Cloud just yet, but rather from the cities, as the traveling-ballclub Minnesota Mud Puppies were looking for talent, and gave Hauge a shot.

“[The Mud Puppies] gave me a full contract, it was really rewarding.” The Twin Cities-based ballclub was in just its second year of existence in the Northwoods League, being formulated during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to make up for games expedited by the Thunder Bay Border Cats’ temporary expulsion from league play because of border safety issues, being across the boundary in Ontario. 

Despite the road-only schedule, Hauge emerged as a premier talent. Hauge finished nearly atop the Mud Puppies with a .287 average, 21 runs batted in, and a wicked slugging percentage of .461! But, with travel, comes trial, as the team collected a grand total of 7 wins in 38 games of action in 2022. 

“You learn a lot through losing.”

Luckily, with all Mud Puppies’ players from 2022, came a clause in their contracts where – if accepted by the player – they could be ‘drafted’ off to any other team in the playoffs throughout the Northwoods League. With the fifth pick of the 2022 postseason expansion draft, the St. Cloud Rox wanted Hauge. 

So, Hauge packed up, drove an hour North, and proceeded to reach base via a hit-by-pitch in his lone postseason appearance for St. Cloud in 2022. But the Rox saw what a full season from Jackson Hauge could look like, and that’s when they offered him a full contract for the 2023 season.

In hindsight, what a fruitful signing that was.

With the whirlwind of a journey he’s experienced through college baseball so far, and the way he’s shined handling it, some would say he’s almost ready for the next step in his baseball journey. But, Hauge likes to keep his sights on what’s directly in front of him.

“Everybody wants to play after college. But for me, I’m just focused on going back to Mankato and winning a national championship. I think we have a really good roster this year. The rest will come later…”