Multi-Sport Athlete: Moorhead’s Taye Reich to Play in USA Baseball Tournament While College Football Offers Roll in

REICH IS ENTERING HIS JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL IN THE FALL OF 2025.

MOORHEAD, Minn. (KVRR) –After helping the Moorhead Spuds baseball program to a State Tournament Berth this Spring, Taye Reich’s baseball journey is not quite over in 2025.

“We were walking back to the bus and the Minnetonka [head coach] was standing there,” said Reich. “He said he’d get me in touch with some people and he’d want to see me come down to North Carolina, so that’s really what happened.”

Against Minnetonka in the Minnesota Class 4A State Quarterfinals, Reich went 2-for-3 with two runs scored and a walk.

Now, Reich is preparing for an opportunity of a lifetime: playing for USA baseball.

“I can’t really fathom it right now,” said Reich. “It probably won’t even hit me until I go down to North Carolina and realize, wow, this is the regional tournament for USA Baseball.”

Reich will play with the 16U Midwest team in the National Team Identification Series in Cary, North Carolina in August. It is a set of games that helps provide an opportunity to compete for a spot on a USA Baseball national team…and playing for USA baseball speaks for itself – 17 first round picks in this past MLB draft were Alumi, including the top-4 selections.

“It’s an incredible opportunity and the fact that me or anybody else on any of these teams could potentially play for the national team, that’s just, it’s, that’s crazy,” said Reich.

Moorhead baseball head coach Greg Salvevold has been at the helm of the Spuds program for 19 years.

“This is the first time baseball players played USA baseball and got asked,” said Salvevold. “Just seeing the community reaction to him being asked and going down there in August has been pretty special for our baseball program.”

Reich is excelling in baseball. He held a .382 batting average and had a team-high 12 stolen bases in the Spring. Yet, baseball may not be his best sport. According to several recruiting sites, Reich is a top-10 football recruit in Minnesota for the 2027 class. That shows with several Division I offers including Big Ten teams like Minnesota, and the Dakotas (NDSU/UND), among several others. Doing both at a high level not only helps bring in more attention, but provides the next generation a role model.

“His work ethic in football, seeing what he’s done in that, and then knowing that he’s playing baseball too, I’ve told him many times that, hey, even though you have everything going for you in football, baseball could be there for you, too,” said Salvevold. “My two boys, they look at the way he works and they want to be like him. And I think even some of the Spuds players, they see what he’s doing and it drives them to want to be better, too.”
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Reich still has multiple seasons of high school sports to go before deciding on his future, so a baseball vs. football choice is certainly not imminent.

“I try not to really think about it when I’m in the moment,” said Reich. “I mean, like I’m going into my junior year. That’s really what I need to focus on right now – high school sports. I have to get through these next two years of baseball and football and then see where life takes me. Before [the USA Baseball invite], I kind of had my sights on football, just because that was the opportunities that I had. I would still say football is more the goal, but if something happens with baseball and an opportunity presents itself, then I might take it up, I might not. It really just depends on what I want to do later. It’s a fun experience, though, to just get recognized for baseball and for football.”

The 16U NTIS Champions Cup is August 7th through the 10th in Cary, North Carolina at the USA Baseball National Training Complex.