Augusta University baseball brings friends LaRoche, Ayala back together

By Shelbie Summerlin | Sports writer

Kyle LaRoche, a senior catcher from Brunswick, is about to start his second season at Augusta University, and his best friend from junior college ball, Koby Ayala, a senior infielder from Lilburn, has joined the team this academic year.

The two baseball players first met at Lawson State Community College, but now the two athletes’ paths have crossed again at AU.

LaRoche started out his college baseball career at Calhoun Community College in Huntsville, Ala., but made the decision to leave after realizing Calhoun wasn’t the right place to call home. Then entered Lawson, the answer for LaRoche.

“In the summer of 2019, I transferred to Lawson State,” said LaRoche. “Lawson was the most interesting, seemed like the best fit for me.”

Ayala’s recruitment to Lawson was during high school. He graduated and went straight into attendance at the junior college.

“My senior year, we played in a tournament in Hoover, Ala., which is like 15 minutes from Lawson,” said Ayala. “They noticed me there, and the pitching coach started talking to me a lot after that. He was the recruiter. It was a good opportunity to go. I got a full scholarship, so I knew I just had to go to Lawson.”

Both athletes loved Lawson, but LaRoche had a year of college ball experience under his belt while Ayala had to adjust to the intensity of playing a college sport.

“It was definitely hard because the coaching styles were different from what I was used to,” said Ayala.

But he wouldn’t trade his time at Lawson for anything.

“I just loved the team and everything,” he said. “We really came together later on that fall. I ended up spending three years there, so I had to love it.”

LaRoche was used to how things were run at Calhoun, so he had to adapt to how things were run at Lawson.

“It was a big change,” said LaRoche. “I went from a school that was really lackadaisical. Lawson was almost the complete opposite of that. It’s a grind, every single day, in and out. But it brought out the best in me, and I’m so thankful for that experience.”

After their time at Lawson, LaRoche and Ayala had to move on to the next stage of their lives. LaRoche left the year before Ayala and transferred to Augusta for the 2021-2022 season.

“Me and the hitting coach at Lawson, who I had a really good relationship with, started looking around at other schools that might be a good fit,” said LaRoche. “Augusta was the biggest one that we felt like would be a good fit for me, so he DMed the coach on Twitter, and the process started by that. I went on a visit like two weeks later and then committed at the end of that week. Then I finished the year out at Lawson and had a really good season.”

Ayala started his recruitment process to Augusta last fall. During his meetings last year at Lawson, Ayala was asked what schools he was interested in continuing college ball at.

“I put in Augusta because the Peach Belt’s a really good conference, and it’d give me a chance to play good baseball,” said Ayala. “It kind of started off slow, but in the spring, I started to put up numbers and played pretty well. They started talking to me after that, and we had a lot of conversations on the phone. It was around conference tournament time when they started to want to come watch me play. I had a really good conference tournament, so after that, they offered me, and I made my decision to come at the end of May.”

With LaRoche already at Augusta, he put in a good word for his friend Ayala.

“I told Coach [Micah] Blount [former assistant coach] about Koby,” said LaRoche. “He kind of seemed somewhat interested and then as the year went on, Koby started to put up some really good numbers. They started talking to me a lot more about Koby, the type of player he was, his personality, how’d he fit in with us. Once they started having those conversations, I knew they were really interested, so me and Koby started talking a little bit about the possibility of [him coming to AU] and eventually it worked out.”

Before coming to Augusta, Ayala sought out advice from LaRoche on the school and team.

“I asked him small questions about how things were going around here, what we do,” said Ayala. “We have the same major [business], so he helped me out with what to expect in the classroom too which was really helpful. He’s helped bring me towards people. I go over to his house, and I’ve met Dom, Cody and Charlie, so we all hang out a good bit.”

Now the two athletes are back together at Augusta and are excited about being at the same college again.

“It’s cool to have somebody from an old school,” said LaRoche. “It’s been good to have a guy to always hit with and go to in practice and that I can talk to about where we’ve been and how things are different. We can really just like feed off each other in our past experiences.”

“Me and Kyle are pretty good friends,” said Ayala. “We hang out a lot, we hit together pretty much three to four times a week. We were kind of taught a lot of the same things about hitting, so it’s good to have somebody that knows a lot about how I go about it. It helps having that mind there to help you out.”

As a new Jaguar, Ayala is looking forward to his first season at Augusta.

“The team is pretty good from what I can see right now,” said Ayala. “It’s just exciting to be somewhere new.”

AU Coach Chris Howell is ready to see what having Ayala on this year’s roster, along with LaRoche, can do for the team this upcoming season.

“We are excited to have Koby in the Jaguar program,” said Howell. “He brings experience and hard work to our team, and I look forward to his impact. These two guys played together in junior college. The trust and comfort show and I look forward to a great year from both of them.”

Contact Shelbie Summerlin at ssummerlin@augusta.edu.

AU baseball’s Koby Ayala starts a double play for the Jaguars in a recent Blood Drive Series exhibition. At the top of the page, Kyle LaRoche catches during a recent workout. (photos by Shelbie Summerlin)