College of the Redwoods Athletics

By Ray Hamill — After a very successful spring at College of the Redwoods, Bode Joyner is gearing up for the next chapter in his baseball career.

The former St. Bernard’s Crusader recently headed out to North Dakota where he will play for the Division-II University of Jamestown Jimmies.

And Joyner will carry plenty of momentum with him after an all-conference campaign at CR and a summer that saw him embrace a new challenge.

“We’re excited for Bode,” CR head coach John Downey said. “They’ve been on him for a while. He’s definitely earned it.”

Joyner has had to overcome a lot of adversity on the path to success.

After graduating from St. Bernard’s in 2021, the multi-sport standout opted to play baseball at Santa Rosa JC.

However, a serious back injury suffered just a few months later forced him to sit out that year.

Joyner would then transfer to Napa Valley for his freshman campaign, before returning to the North Coast this past year to play for Downey at CR.

And it was a choice that paid big dividends in his career.

“I loved it,” Joyner said of playing for the local collegiate program. “I think it was probably one of the best decisions I could have made. The coaching staff all really worked really well with everybody.”

Joyner averaged .356 at the plate in conference play with four home runs, seven doubles and 25 RBIs, and was CR’s lone representative on the all-Golden Valley Conference first team.

The highlight moment of the season for Joyner was a walk-off home run against Butte, but that’s not all he says he will remember from his time playing there.

“I think the easy answer (for what I will remember the most) is me hitting the walk-off home run against Butte and celebrating with everyone,” he said. “But I’ll miss my teammates. We were a pretty close group of guys and I’ll definitely miss those guys.”

The decision to continue his playing career at Jamestown was a relatively easy one for Joyner after the coaches there reached out to him.

This past spring, head coach John Hager led the Jimmies to a 32-18 record, including an 11-9 record in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference.

Joyner will play first base for his new team and he says he is looking forward to the opportunity.

“I’m pretty excited about it,” he said.

With two years of eligibility remaining, however, Joyner is already eying his future in the game.

This summer, along with his father Dan Joyner, he helped Downey coach the Humboldt Eagles American Legion 17U team, and he says it was an experience he enjoyed and something he could see himself doing more of in the future.

“It was really cool,” he said. “I was pretty fortunate to experience that with my father on the coaching staff. Not everybody can say that.”

Family is clearly important to Joyner and his family has supported him throughout his career.

“I’d like to thank both my parents — Dan and Wendy — and my sister (Sierra). She’s always been super supportive of me, as well as coach Downey, coach (Brian) Barreto and coach (Andrew) Aiello, and my teammates obviously,” he said. “And just everyone who’s been in my corner.”

Joyner says he plans on majoring in Computer Science.