![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Ziegler2.webp\")
LSU Shreveport pitcher and Ash Grove alum Draven Zeigler delivers a pitch at the 2025 NAIA World Series in Lewiston, Idaho. (Photo by Arthur Trickett-Wile of the Lewiston Tribune).<\/p>\nDraven Zeigler is beginning to understand the gravity of helping LSU Shreveport reach unprecedented college baseball success.<\/p>\n
National headlines. A lively downtown parade through the northwest Louisiana city. U.S. President Donald Trump extending an invitation to the White House.<\/p>\n
Two weeks after the final out of the NAIA World Series in Lewiston, Idaho, that clinched the Pilots\u2019 gaudy 59-0 season \u2014 the first unscathed campaign in college baseball history \u2014 the 2019 Ash Grove graduate feels the reverberations of the exploit at his family\u2019s home in nearby Collins.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember we were in an airport before the (national championship) and people were coming up to us asking, \u2018Aren\u2019t you guys the undefeated team?’\u201d said Zeigler, a hard-throwing right-hander and one of the top arms in the NAIA ranks. \u201cNow that we did it, it still hasn\u2019t set in. It feels like a dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zeigler had a significant hand in one of the most dominant runs in any collegiate sport in any classification for the Pilots, a team that averaged 11.3 runs, had a .361 team batting average, a 2.38 team ERA and a .982 fielding percentage, and won 28 games by at least 10 runs.<\/p>\n
LSU Shreveport pitcher and Ash Grove alum Draven Zeigler delivers a pitch at the 2025 NAIA World Series in Lewiston, Idaho. (Photo by Arthur Trickett-Wile of the Lewiston Tribune).<\/p>\n
The 6-foot-4, 220-pound sixth-year junior posted a 1.76 ERA in the run that included a 13-0 record as a starter and 107 strikeouts in 87 innings, yielding just a single home run.<\/p>\n
Shreveport\u2019s No. 2 arm earned NAIA First-Team All-American distinction and was a finalist for NAIA\u2019s Pitcher of the Year award, ultimately given to teammate Isaac Rohde.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a kid, I had some undefeated teams,\u201d Zeigler said. \u201cBut doing it in college is completely different. (At the NAIA World Series), we thought everyone was rooting against us, so we felt that pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shreveport broke the all-time consecutive four-year college baseball wins streak earlier this season when it eclipsed 46 set by NCAA Division II Savannah State in 2000. In North Idaho in late May in the NAIA World Series annually hosted by Lewis-Clark State College, the Pilots broke the all-levels streak of 57 set by Texas junior college Howard College in 2009.<\/p>\n
The longest NCAA Division I win streak of 34 games is currently shared by the University of Texas (1977) and Florida Atlantic University (1999).<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Zieger3.webp\")
LSU Shreveport pitcher and Ash Grove alum Draven Zeigler pitches at the 2025 NAIA World Series in Lewiston, Idaho. (Photo by Arthur Trickett-Wile of the Lewiston Tribune).<\/p>\n
And how did the relatively obscure school of roughly 9,400 undergraduate students \u2014 a sister school to current College Baseball World Series participant LSU \u2014 become the first to avoid a single hiccup on its lengthy schedule?<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach (Brad) Neffendorf, he was so constant making sure we always put everything behind us every time we stepped on the field,\u201d Zeigler said.<\/p>\n
After starting out 22-0, Zeigler said he and a few of his teammates were sitting around and evaluating the damage they\u2019d done to their opposition and flirting with the notion of maintaining the dominance through the duration of their schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember asking, \u2018What if we could actually not lose and win out the rest of the year?\u201d Zeigler said. \u201cMight as well try.\u201d<\/p>\n
Talent helps. A sizable portion of the Pilots\u2019 roster either started their collegiate careers at the NCAA Division I level or were recruited by Division I programs out of high school but, for one reason or another, made a junior college stop before deciding to play for a small college program that regularly won at a high clip.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Ziegler_AG.jpg\")
Draven Zeigler was a three-sport athlete at Ash Grove before graduating in 2019. He went on to pitch at North Arkansas College before helping LSU Shreveport go 59-0 in the 2025 season. (Courtesy photo)<\/p>\n
Zeigler, whose fastball has been clocked in the mid-90s, was physically a late-bloomer coming out of Ash Grove. The three-sport standout helped paced the Pirates at a lanky 170 pounds before committing to North Arkansas College, where he grew into his frame and flourished at the NJCAA level.<\/p>\n
He said he began fielding recruiting calls from such Division I programs as Missouri State, Georgia State, Wichita State, Arkansas State and Morehead State, but didn\u2019t reach the NCAA Division I academic standard during his time at the Arkansas community college, forcing him to seek an NAIA home.<\/p>\n
A knee injury in 2021 led to a medical redshirt at Shreveport before he convincingly bounced back in subsequent seasons. With one remaining year of eligibility due to the 2020 COVID pandemic that granted athletes an additional year of eligibility, Zeigler currently has a 30-2 career record at Shreveport with a 2.70 ERA and 262 strikeouts to 72 walks.<\/p>\n
What will the encore be in 2026 for Shreveport, extending the streak 100?<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the plan,\u201d Zeigler said.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Ryan Collingwood covers college and high school sports in the Springfield metropolitan area for the Daily Citizen. Have a story idea or gripe? Send an email to rcollingwood@sgfcitizen.org, call or 417-837-3660, or follow Ryan on social media at X.com\/rwcollingwood. More by Ryan Collingwood<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Draven Zeigler is beginning to understand the gravity of helping LSU Shreveport reach unprecedented college baseball success. National…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2289],"tags":[5,648,24286,24287,24288,1694,2341,12270],"class_list":{"0":"post-109092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-college-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-college-baseball","10":"tag-draven-zeigler","11":"tag-lsu-shreveport","12":"tag-naia-world-series","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-baseball","15":"tag-topsports1"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114695488396387558","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRyan Collingwood\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n