Flames open baseball season With Emmanuel, Saturday
CLEVELAND, Tenn. - The official beginning of the 2025 Lee University baseball season had to be moved to Saturday, but the Flames will host Emmanuel University in a pair of nine-inning games that are slated to get underway at 12 noon with a single nine-inning contest to follow on Sunday at 2 p.m.
“We are super excited about getting the season underway,” said Mark Brew who begins his 19th season as head coach of the Lee baseball program. “It has been a challenging pre-season with the weather, but everyone has challenges getting consistency on the field this time of the year. Our guys are ready to go, and we have gotten a really good opponent with Emmanuel to contend with.”
JJ Williams returns to the Flames for the season opener Saturday at noon. (Lee Athletics/File Photo)
Brew will be dealing with the loss of six key players that helped direct the 2024 team to a 39-18 record and the GSC regular season title. The Flames placed second in the NCAA South Regional which was hosted and won by the University of Tampa.
The offense will be missing Dylan Standifer, Brandon Daniels, Riley Black, and Cam Suto while the pitching staff will deal with replacing All-GSC hurler Jack Nedrow and Keegan Gagliardo.
This season’s offense will answer with transfer Cooper Doughman, who was an All-GSC catcher at Auburn Montgomery last season. The Flames return JJ Williams, Malachi Cloud (back from an injury), Luke Collier, Ashton Simmons, Josiah Miller, Isaiah French, and Brock Sisson to the line-up and that should give them a chance to once again have a line-up blessed with lots of speed and power.
Tim Gooden, who came out of the Lee bullpen 20 times in 2024 and posted a 2-0 record with a sparkling 1.84 ERA was named to the All-GSC Preseason Team.
Coach Brew has named his starters for the opening three games. Will Baker will toe the rubber for game one. Cooper Casteel will start game two and Dylan Van Meeteren will get the call on Sunday. Baker is a graduate student out of Jacksonville State, Casteel is a junior who pitched at Cleveland State, while Van Meeteren is a red-shirt sophomore from California who played at College of Desert.
Jeff Kilgore played for Emmanuel and is in his 12th year as head coach of the Lions. His club posted an overall mark of 30-22 last season and were 18-14 in Conference Carolina play. The club returns a pair of all-conference players in Thomas Collins, who paced the team with a .378 batting average and Brock Wollin, who hit .320 with a team-leading 44 RBI.
The pitching staff is loaded with returnees. Hunter Luke had a 5-3 record and a 4.68 ERA. He and Ethan Pooler (3-3) posted the most innings pitched last season.
