COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. - There was a point prior to the 2022 Saint John's University baseball season when Jordan Amundson considered giving up on college baseball entirely.
 
The current SJU outfielder began his collegiate career at St. Thomas. His freshman season in 2020 was cancelled due to the onset of COVID-19. He then appeared in nine games the following year, but the Tommies were beginning their transition to the Division I level and he didn't fit into those plans.
 
"I was actually thinking about giving up on baseball as a whole," recalls Amundson, an Eden Prairie High School graduate. "But then I talked about it with my grandfather, whose always been one of my biggest advocates. He asked me if there was a place I could see myself playing if I wasn't at St. Thomas.
 
"And Saint John's turned out to be an easy answer."
 
His grandfather knows a thing or two about collegiate athletics. Ron Leafblad was a team captain for the Wisconsin football team in the early 1960s and played in the 1963 Rose Bowl. He was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 2021.
 
"I've spent a lot of time over the years talking to him about life in general," said Amundson, whose father Troy also played college basketball at Montana State in the mid-1980s. "He's been a great mentor to me."
 
His grandfather's advice paid off as Amundson found an immediate home at SJU. He earned All-MIAC honors in 2022, recording 38 hits and 28 RBI. He followed that up with 37 hits and 33 RBI last spring, then decided to return for a fifth year of eligibility this season because of an NCAA ruling granting all student-athletes an extra year due to the impact of COVID-19.
 
"He brings a lot of intensity," said SJU head coach Jerry Haugen '76, who is in his 47th season at the helm. "He plays hard all the time. He loves the game and loves being out there with his teammates.
 
"He still does a lot of the little things seniors sometimes forget they have to do. He's still right there helping clean the dugouts. He's just a great guy to have around."
 
Amundson's athletic career almost ended before it really had a chance to begin. He was playing youth football in third grade when he fell on a cone as he was running for a touchdown. The cone went through his facemask and struck him in the eye, requiring surgery.
 
"I broke my orbital bone," he recalls. "But I was lucky. The doctor said if my eye had been open when the cone made contact, I might have lost it permanently."
 
Instead, Amundson has gone on to achieve a good deal of success, making plenty of friends along the way. One of them is fellow senior Jeremy Klick, his roommate during his time at St. Thomas.
 
Klick transferred to SJU to complete his fifth year of eligibility, meaning the two are now teammates once again.
 
"That's been exciting," said Amundson of Klick, the reigning MIAC Baseball Pitcher of the Week who has appeared in three games so far this season and boasts a 0.00 ERA with 16 strikeouts. 
 
"It's really great having him here."
 
His teammates feel the same way about Amundson, who already has 10 hits and eight RBI as his team has gotten off to a 6-4 start.
 
"We feel like we can do some really special things this season," said Amundson, whose team begins a second spring trip when it takes on SAGU-American Indian College at 11:30 a.m. (CDT) Saturday in Tucson, Ariz.
 
"We have a lot of seniors, and we think we're capable of pretty big things. We want to win the MIAC. But an MIAC championship won't be enough. We feel like we can go further than that."