Opportunity.

It’s all an athlete hopes for coming out of high school, and many times it’s all that keeps an athlete from collegiate success.

Brent Sakurai didn’t get that opportunity as a senior at Mid-Pacific. Although he hit over .320 as a senior and didn’t give up an earned run in the only three games he started in the regular season, Sakurai was overshadowed.

Teammates Trey Saito and Marcus Doi were the Gatorade Hawaii state player of the year award and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser All-State player of the year.

Another Owl, shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa, was selected in the fourth round of the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, one of six selections out of Hawaii high schools that year.

So Sakurai went the junior college route, choosing Glendale C.C. to be close to the big city of Los Angeles.

“When I got there, the JC route was a grind,” Sakurai said. “You’re at the field for six hours a day and on the weekend, it’s even longer. It was a grind.”

A grind that suited Sakurai well. His dream from the beginning was to play Division I baseball and he believed, despite being overlooked out of high school, that the opportunity would be there in two years.

Eventually it came in the form of new New Mexico State head coach Brian Green.

“He came out to watch one of our intersquads and wanted me to come out on a visit (to New Mexico State),” Sakurai said. “It was my first opportunity, so I came out here and met the coaches and fell in love with his vision of the program and what they were trying to build.”

The Aggies started the previous season 1-15 and won 11 games total.

Sakurai was one of 35 newcomers that showed up in the fall to make the roster of a Division I team with very few returnees.

“They had maybe three seniors and four returnees that actually ended up on our 35-man roster, so it really was like trying out for a travel team,” Sakurai said. “I knew I was going to have to show something in the fall because there were probably nine middle infielders trying out and we all just kind of moved all over the place, but I found a home at second base.”

Sakurai started all but three games that junior season and was one of four regulars to hit over .300 for an Aggies team that started 10-10.

NMSU opened the Western Athletic Conference season with a sweep of Chicago State and went on to finish 20-7 in league after going 7-19-1 the previous year.

The Aggies won two games in the WAC tournament to finish with 23 more wins than they had the previous year.

“It’s probably one of the coolest things, seeing a team go from 11 wins to the biggest turnaround in college baseball,” Sakurai said. “I know Coach Green gets emotional with our class because it was us just buying into a program. When most of us came on our visits, the field was in bad shape, the locker room wasn’t that great and he told us all of those things would change and he really held true to that.”

Presley Askew Field went through multiple upgrades the past two years, including the addition of infield turf and upgrades to the locker room and team room.

A film room was added and the park built chair-back seating for fans for the first time. There was a dugout renovation and expansion as well as upgrades made to clubhouse lighting and the outfield fence.

All of the upgrades were privately funded.

“It’s completely different,” Sakurai said.

With 13 seniors on the roster this season, the Aggies are 26-19 against a tougher nonconference schedule and 11-4 in the WAC.

The Aggies were rolling until getting swept by first-place Grand Canyon last weekend in a matchup of the top two teams in the league.

“I think it was just one of those weekends where we just didn’t play our best,” Sakurai said. “We’ve been rolling and doing really well and I guess it’s the game of baseball — sometimes you just don’t have all of the aspects you need to win. We didn’t play our best and they played really well.”

Sakurai did his part in the series with five hits, including a double, and two runs scored.

He’s currently hitting a team-leading .368 with 10 doubles, three homers and 37 runs scored.

His six triples are tied for fourth in the country and he leads the WAC with 63 hits.

Although the Aggies were swept by Grand Canyon, the WAC title and automatic berth in the NCAA tournament will come down to the WAC tourney at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, Ariz., at the end of the month.

“I think that’s really cool. You bust your butt the whole regular season so you can put yourself in a good position to succeed in the tournament, because if you get the one seed and take care of business, you’ve got to win three games, which is like winning a weekend series,” Sakurai said. “I don’t think the tournament takes away from the regular season, but at the same time, if you qualify for the tournament you get a shot (at regionals) and that’s a cool thing.”