“There was a good amount of success but not every amount of success,” BGSU baseball head coach Kyle Hallock said about the 2024 season.
2024 was a record-breaking year for Bowling Green baseball, who shattered 12 program records during their Mid-American Conference (MAC) Regular Season Championship campaign.
The Falcons also dominated the season awards. Hallock earned MAC Coach of the Year, junior outfielder Nathan Archer earned MAC Player of the Year and catcher Garrett Wright took home MAC Freshman of the Year honors.
However, the 2025 team is without a few key members of last year’s championship squad.
Most notably, Archer was selected by the Chicago White Sox in the 12th round of the MLB Draft.
The Orange and Brown also lost David Silva, Jack Krause, Leighton Banjoff, Landon Roque, Rigo Ramos, Tyler Ross, Peyton Wilson and Isaiah Seidel, leaving gaps in leadership positions from last year.
“I think the biggest key to our success this year is the next wave of graduating into the roles that we need to replace. One of the things we covered is if we want to have success this season, our guys from last year need to play bigger roles,” Hallock said. “If they play the same exact role or play at the same level they did last year, we can’t expect the same success.”
Despite earning Second Team All-MAC honors last year, junior two-way player DJ Newman did not finish the season as strong as he hoped, missing 18 games down the stretch.
However, he has spent all offseason recovering from injuries and preparing for a bigger role in 2025, earning preseason First Team All-American honors.
“I’ve been out a while, haven’t played baseball in a while,” Newman said. “I’m looking forward to getting back out there with my teammates and just taking the field again.”
After an impressive freshman campaign, sophomore catcher Garrett Wright is also looking to take another step in his game.
“Last year, zero clue what was going on for pretty much all the year. Now, I have some experience, and I’ve got some credibility to me,” Wright said. “I don’t have to fill the same [role] as last year, but I have expectations for myself, people have expectations for me, and I need to try to meet those.”
Pitching woes became a problem for the Falcons down the stretch last season, allowing a 6.81 earned run average (ERA), which the team looks to address in 2025.
“I think our staff this year is really deep. There’s some new guys coming in who are going to play big roles. So, they’re going to have to step up and get the job done,” senior pitcher Nic Good said. “But overall, I think we’re looking good, and we’re ready to go.”
The Falcons will have a lot to prove on the mound this year, with many arms being relatively unproven.
“It’s a talented group, but it has to be productive. There’s potential with them, but like we kind of talk about, potential’s what you haven’t done yet,” Hallock said. “They’re out to prove it, and strikes and outs will dictate roles and their ability to keep us in ballgames and just continue to make us a complete team. I think the best teams can play baseball every which way, and they can win a lot of different ways.”
With the potential to fill some of these gaps will be new additions as the Orange and Brown brought in seven freshmen and four transfers for the 2025 campaign.
Junior pitcher Ty Roder transferred from Wright State with the potential to make an impact on the mound immediately.
“We recruited him out of high school; Anthony Wayne product from right up the road. He’s got a big-time fastball, a good changeup, and a tight breaking ball,” Hallock said. “So, he’s fit in the way we thought he would fit in when we recruited him.”
Senior infielder Gunner Antillon, who transferred from Cal Baptist, has also been impressive this preseason.
“He’s come in, and he really understands the angles of shortstop. There were a couple of groundballs that were hit up the middle, and I’m like, ‘Okay, that’s probably a base hit.’ Then, there he was to grab them,” Hallock said. “So, he really understands the position, he’s got experience, and he can run the show in the middle.”
Meanwhile, the new batch of freshmen have arrived at Bowling Green energized and hungry for success.
“Our freshman class has really come in and taken the priority of making our practices better. They go out there, they watch the guy that’s been here ahead of them, and they do what they do at that level,” Hallock said. “So, they will find their way to contribute for us this year.”
Despite finding success last year, the 2024 campaign did not finish the way the Falcons had hoped.
BGSU fell to Western Michigan and Ball State in the MAC Tournament, coming up short of winning the MAC Tournament Championship.
“Nobody likes to end their season on a loss. So, for us, there’s a lot to celebrate, but as we turn the page and move on from it, that’s something that lives with those guys where there was a lot of success, and in their mind, it fell short, it ended too soon,” assistant coach Matt Rembielak said. “We enjoyed being together as much as we did, but we didn’t ultimately get the full goal that we wanted. So, we celebrated, but also, at the same time, these guys know there was more in there, and that was a learning experience of going through a season like that and then entering the tournament’s kind of a different animal.”
The way last season ended at Crushers Stadium in Avon has been the biggest motivator for the Falcons going into this season.
“It’s a conversation every single week within our program…A lot of success, a lot to be positive about. But also, it wasn’t enough for the guys we’ve recruited and the guys we’ve brought back,” Hallock said. “Looking forward to seeing the theme come to fruition of happy but not satisfied, and that’s pretty much how we’ve approached this preseason.”
Although the Falcons finished last season with many big achievements, they are still looking to evolve and make the 2025 season their best yet.
“Trying to run it back. Trying to be better than last year. We have the same guys as last year, mostly. The guys that we lost last year, we brought in guys that we can win with; I know we can win with them,” Wright said. “So, we just need to work at it and just try to repeat it.”
While Bowling Green expects to have a successful season, they also expect to be battle-tested by the end of the year.
“We’ll get tested early on with our schedule, and I expect us to play through some success and I expect us to play through adversity when it finds us, too. So, I think the sign of good teams is how long you stay in adverse conditions and how quickly you can work your way out of them,” Hallock said. “Right now, our practices are centered around putting them in as tough as spots as possible and seeing how long it takes us to get out of it.”
A major help for the Falcons in achieving their goals this season will be the community support.
“I think you saw with how many people we had up and down the right field line and all three sections of our stadium bleachers filled, those are fun crowds to play in front of, and they can get loud in a hurry and create a home field advantage for us. This town loves supporting winners. We fought hard to get to where we’re at, and we know it’s a fight to stay there,” Hallock said. “We know that the league has their dreams and goals, too, and they’re probably pretty similar to what we want to accomplish. Those battles every weekend are going to be very, very important, and the support of people coming out to stick with us from years past is really important to get us off on the right tone and puts the players in a good mood.”
The Falcons have a loaded schedule this season, beginning their 2025 campaign with a three-game series against Middle Tennessee on Feb. 14-16.
“Based on what this team wants to accomplish, they’re going to treat every single game as a MAC Championship game. That way, hopefully, down the road, we don’t have to change should we be playing for a conference championship, whether it’s a regular season or a tournament one,” Hallock said. “Middle Tennessee’s going to be just as important as Miami when we play, or anyone else in our league.”
BGSU will have road Power 4 matchups against Cincinnati on Feb. 18, Michigan State on April 2, Michigan on April 22 and Notre Dame on May 9-10. BG will also host the Fighting Irish on May 11.
Bowling Green will open MAC play against Ohio, who ended their historic 17-game conference winning streak, on March 7-9, before facing Tiffin in their home opener at Steller Field on March 19.
The Orange and Brown will battle Western Michigan, the defending MAC Tournament champions, on April 11-13.
Finally, the Falcons will face Toledo in the Battle of I-75 at Fifth-Third Field on May 2.
While there is a lot of pressure on Bowling Green to repeat the success from last year, they intend to take things one game at a time.
“I think it’s the position that we always saw ourselves in, but that doesn’t mean anything changes,” Good said. “We’re still ourselves, and we’re still going to play Bowling Green baseball.”
