BERKELEY – Cal baseball coach Mike Neu doesn't know why Kade Kretzschmar is so hot at the plate. And frankly, he doesn't care to know.

"When a guy is that hot, I don't really ask why," Neu said. "I just sit back and watch, and hope it never ends."

Kretzschmar is exhibiting no signs of ending his recent tear. After hitting just .232 through the first six weeks of the season, Kretzschmar exploded in April – batting .426 with eight home runs, seven doubles and 12 multi-hit games. Wednesday, he was named the Dick Howser Trophy National Player of the Month by the National College Baseball Writers Association.

Kretzschmar has jacked his batting average up by almost 100 points. He enters this weekend's Pac-12 series at UCLA hitting .331 and is tied for seventh in the conference with 11 home runs.

"It's just really cool to see his progress, and see him as hot as really almost anybody that we've had over a short span," Neu said.

Kretzschmar didn't receive much attention from major programs coming out of San Marcos High School in Carlsbad. He wound up getting an Ivy League degree at Dartmouth, where he was the 2022 Ivy League Player of the Year.

Looking to utilize his final year of eligibility elsewhere after finishing up at Dartmouth, Kretzschmar caught the attention of Neu and Cal's coaching staff.

"Coach Neu called me and I just kind of fell in love with his temperament," Kretzschmar said. "He seemed like a very relaxed guy, and that's something I kind of wanted. And the work I had to put myself through at an Ivy League school – I think that set me up with good habits to be able to get my work done."

Kretzschmar's path to Berkeley by the way of Hanover, New Hampshire, began just outside San Diego when he picked up a soft bat at the age of 2 – and held it like he was hitting left-handed.

"I thought, 'Oh my gosh. This is going to be great,'" said Kretzschmar's father, Kevin, who played youth baseball with MLB Hall-of-Famer Jeff Bagwell while growing up in Killingworth, Connecticut. "He does everything else right-handed, but from his earliest days – even in T-ball – his coaches would say he has a beautiful, left-handed swing."

While older brothers Skylar and Ryan played football, Kretzschmar was drawn to baseball from the moment he displayed that left-handed stance for his dad. They would watch countless games together, and even attended a San Diego Padres game when they hosted Bagwell and the Houston Astros – resulting in an on-field conversation between Bagwell and Kade, Skylar and Kevin beforehand.

When Kretzschmar realized he likely wasn't going to get an offer from a Power 5 program out of high school, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to get an Ivy League education – despite the major difference in climate.

"I went on my visit during the summer and it was like 80 degrees, so I thought it was pretty nice," Kretzschmar said. "But my first winter there it was about negative 15. I was kind of rethinking my decision."

Kretzschmar's career at Dartmouth was halted just as it was getting started because of COVID-19. He played his freshman year in 2019 and started six of the first seven games in 2020 before NCAA competition, along with the rest of the world, shut down. The Ivy League canceled each of the next two seasons.

Kretzschmar returned home immediately after the beginning of the COVID-19 shutdown. With the world converting to remote learning, Kretzschmar returned to the Northeast in the fall – but to live with teammate and roommate Cole Roland and his family just outside of Boston, along with fellow teammate Justin Murray.

The trio ended up getting together with several other college players from the area and forming their own league of sorts, splitting into groups of pitchers and position players and staging games at a local baseball complex. It allowed the athletes to keep their games sharp and satisfy their appetite for competition with no college season available to them.

"We all just kind of came together at this field," Kretzschmar said. "It was great to have a field to go to every day. It started out kind of informal, but a bunch of kids started showing up. Gradually, it became more formal and scouts started showing up."

Whatever Kretzschmar was doing at the New England Baseball Complex in Northborough, Massachusetts, must have worked. He returned to Hanover for the 2022 season and hit .353 with seven home runs and 46 RBI. Along with earning Ivy League Player of the Year honors, Kretzschmar also earned a spot on the ABCA All-Region Second Team.

"He's killing it, and I expected him to," said Roland, a right-handed pitcher who ended up transferring to Wake Forest, which is currently ranked No. 3 in the nation. "I always knew he had the ability to do what he's doing. He's just a great athlete, and when he was living at my house, I saw how much work he put into it. He's doing a great job."