Almost a full year and a half removed from his two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Las Vegas, the sophomore infielder has seemingly hit his stride. McNaughton currently stands as the Cougar leader in just about every offensive category from batting average (.382) to RBI (34) and has been central to his team’s success just about every time he takes to the diamond.

“He went out and had an awesome summer, and he just carried that into the season,” said BYU coach Trent Pratt. ” Sometimes you come back from mission, it’s a little different. But man, we’re happy he’s here and how he’s playing.”

As is the case with a lot of returned missionaries, it took some time for McNaughton to get back into the swing of things, literally. Two years away from a sport that relies heavily on timing can be debilitating, as somewhat proven by the former top Arizona’s recruits numbers.

As a freshman, McNaughton saw spot duty in the lineup and only hit for a .135 average and .234 slugging percentage. Fast forward to a year later and he’s almost tripled both of those stat lines while playing a big role in BYU’s every day lineup.

Courtesy BYU Photo

“I think it was tough at first coming back, but I’ve been back for about a year and a half now and just being able to play baseball every day, get back into the rhythm of things,” McNaughton said. “I feel pretty good now. It doesn’t really affect me much.”

Even so, McNaughton doesn’t regret taking his opportunity to serve a mission in the least.

“It was just good realizing what the most important things in life are,” he said about his two-year service. “Before my mission, all day every day was baseball. It’s kind of all I thought about and all I did. Then going on a mission, taking a step back from that for two years, and not even really thinking about baseball, (but) thinking about helping other people, serving God and coming back now … I just have a larger perspective. I don’t think all of life is just baseball. I have much more things to do.”

Ironically enough, the focus away from baseball has enhanced his overall play. It just took a while.

But numbers aside, McNaughton’s bigger utility for this year’s Cougar team is what he provides behind the scenes.

Courtesy BYU Photo

“He’s the best teammate,” Pratt said. “He plays hard every day and I can’t say enough good things about him. He comes to the field and you know what you’re going to get out of Ezra every single day. And man, he’s behind his teammates. He’s the ultimate kid to have on your team. I wish we had 35 players like him.”

For McNaughton, being a leader isn’t all that complicated.

“I’m not too outspoken and I don’t try to I guess talk to other people about it, but I just try to live by example,” he said. “Live a good life, don’t do anything stupid and help people. (It’s) not too complicated … just be a good example to people.”

It was the type of leadership qualities learned from perhaps both his father, Troy McNaughton, who played for BYU in the mid-1990s and his uncle, Sean McNaughton, who played for the Cougars from 2008-2010. Both of them instilled in Ezra a true blue fandom with BYU pretty much the only program he wanted to play for growing up.

So when BYU came forward with a scholarship offer just prior to his junior high school season at Mountain View High School in Arizona, Ezra quickly accepted it.

“BYU was kind of always my dream from as long as I can remember,” he said.

Now that his childhood dream has come full circle, McNaughton is making the most of his opportunity and BYU baseball is certainly better for it.