Pickering’s Denzel Clarke on Fire for Cal State Northridge

It’s a long way from Pickering, Ontario to the campus of Cal State Northridge (CSUN), just northwest of Los Angeles, but the CSUN baseball team is glad that Pickering, Ontario’s Denzel Clarke made that journey in 2019.

Now in his Junior season, this past weekend Clarke had seven hits, including his fifth and sixth home runs of the season, to lead the 12-15 Matadors to a four-game sweep of CSU Bakersfield, clinching the team’s first series win of the season, their first double-header sweep of the season and their first four-game sweep of the season.

Clarke finished the weekend going 7-of-12 (.583) with six RBI, four walks, three runs, two home runs and two doubles. He also stole four bases and has now hit safely in 10-straight games.

The strong weekend series is just another stellar moment in Clarke’s season thus far, as on the season, he has 32 hits, (7 doubles, 6 Homers) for a .330 batting average, has knocked in 18 runs, scored 23 runs and has an awesome 1.046 OPS.

Clarke has been a standout with CSUN since his debut as a freshman in 2019, where he was the only player to appear in all 55 games on the season, hitting 243 with 35 hits, 25 runs, 21 walks, 19 RBI, seven doubles, five home runs and two triples. He was second on the team with 12 stolen bases (on 14 attempts) and finished fourth in the Big West in sacrifice hits (10) and tied for ninth in stolen bases. His season was also notable as he hit the Matadors’ first inside-the-park home run of the 21st century and homered twice for the first time in his career vs. UC Santa Barbara (5/3/19).

In his 2020 sophomore season, Clarke competed in all 15 games, making 12 starts in center field and leading the team in runs (12), home runs (3), batting average (.400), slugging percentage (.775), on-base percentage (.529) and stolen bases (5). He finished first in the Big West in on-base percentage and slugging percentage while he ranked second in stolen bases and home runs, third in batting average, fifth in total bases (31), seventh in runs and 10th in doubles (4). He was also named to Big West All-Academic Team.

Clarke graduated from the Everest Baseball Academy in Vaughan, Ontario and was a member of the Canadian U-18 Junior National Team that won bronze at the COPABE U-18 Pan Am Championships in Panama in 2018 and that finished fourth at the 2017 WBSC U-18 Baseball World Cup in Thunder Bay (photo below). He was drafted by the New York Mets in the 36th round of the 2018 MLB First-Year Player Draft, but chose to stay in school, a decision that CSUN was glad he made.

Denzel Clarke playing for Canada at the WBSC U18 World Cup of Baseball at Port Arthur Stadium in Thunder Bay, Ontario in 2017 (Photo: Christian J. Stewart).

Clarke comes by his athletic talents naturally. His Mother is Donna Clarke, who competed in the women’s heptathlon at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, finishing 17th at the age of 19. His uncle, Kevin Smellie played pro football in the CFL and was a running back on the 1991 Grey Cup champion Toronto Argonauts and his cousin Gavin Smellie participated in the 2012 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in the 4x100m relay. His cousins Josh and Noah Naylor are also well known in baseball circles in Canada and are playing pro baseball, both in the Cleveland Indians organization.

Now in his junior year, Clarke is ranked 82nd on the top 100 draft prospects list and 12th on the top 100 outfielder list by D1 Baseball — a major jump from being taken in the 36th round just a few years ago.

With the season he is having to date, it is quite possible that Clarke could hear his name called very early in the MLB entry draft in July. Hopefully that will be the case and Clarke can join the ever-growing list of Canadians to make their way into the pro-ranks.