Ilwaco pitcher Landin Frank accepted a college offer in Minnesota.

Ilwaco High School 2019 graduate Landin Frank has committed to play baseball for Division III Crown College in Minnesota. Frank, a standout pitcher for Ilwaco, was recruited to pitch and play second base. Frank chose Crown College over a wrestling offer at Phoenix, Arizona’s Ottawa University.

Frank badly wanted to play college baseball. He was planning on attending a community college to play baseball before moving on to a four-year university if no university offers came in. But Crown College coach Ryan Doheny, whose team reached the playoffs for the first time last year, was looking to fill a scholarship spot in his recruiting class and came across Frank’s Next College Student Athlete online profile.

“You build a profile with your grades and video of you playing,” Frank explained. “It’s been a big help, especially being here at a small school that not a lot of people know about.”

About the team’s plans for him, Frank said “I think they want me for pitching, because (Doheny) talked to me a lot about their pitching coach. But I’ll probably be a bit of a utility player. Most of the video I posted was of batting, because that’s what really gets you to the next level.”

After the high school baseball season ended, Frank went to Vancouver on Fridays for personal tutoring at the Lumberyard, run by former college player Gregg Coulter.

“I really improved a lot, and I got some good footage out of it,” Frank said.

While every college recruiting year is highlighted by can’t-miss prospects who have their pick of colleges, there are many more players like Frank, fringe lower-division prospects who put in vast amounts of work at raising their games and getting noticed, with no guarantee that anything will come of it.

“First it’s just really fun. If it wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t do it. But also, knowing that I hadn’t peaked, and there’s so much more I can do, it would have been really sad to end at high school. I want to see me at my best,” Frank said.

Frank plans to pursue an MBA in business management and follow his father, Mark, into the hotel business.