Eastern Illinois baseball returned five players due to an NCAA ruling allowing junior-college transfers whose eligibility was set to expire to receive an additional year.
The decision allowed every starting position player from the Panthers’ Ohio Valley Conference regular-season championship team to return.
The five are graduate utility player Tyler Castro, graduate infielder Jake Ferguson, graduate outfielder Quade Peters, graduate infielder Brett Stanley and graduate infielder Peyton Wilson. Last season, they combined for 636 at-bats, 178 hits and 156 runs.
“I was not planning on getting all these guys back in January last year when they passed the ruling,” 2025 OVC Coach of the Year head coach Jason Anderson said. “So I love that they’re back, but it’s gonna be a challenge to get them all at-bats and keep them all playing good baseball.”
Eastern finished last season one win short in the conference championship, falling 2-1 to Little Rock in the final.
“Obviously losing how we did in the tournament left a bad taste in our mouths, but having that in the back of our minds, through all the workouts, every practice, all the scrimmages, I think that just gives us that little extra push,” graduate right-handed pitcher Tyler Conklin said.
The Panthers retained 26 players and added 13 transfers. All but one addition is a pitcher, and four are freshmen.
Position Players: veteran-heavy depth allows shift from small ball
The one position player transfer is senior infielder Kyree Alexander from Western Illinois, and according to Anderson, he has the most Division I at-bats on the roster.
Anderson said Alexander is the biggest name in their transfer class, and he expects he’ll be an everyday starter.
“I think we have big expectations for him because he can do a lot of different things and play a lot of different positions on the field,” Anderson said.
Another addition to the field for 2026 is graduate outfielder Dylan Drumke, who was injured all last season but was top ten in the OVC in home runs and slugging percentage in 2024.
However, after being out a full season, there’s no guarantee he’ll get back to his old production especially right away.
“He hasn’t played in a while, so it’s something that we’re just going to have to keep an eye on, and he’s got to get his timing back, and baseball’s hard, like the schedule, the travel will break you down,” Anderson said. “So he’s got to get back adjusted to that and see how it looks on the field”
Last year’s offense leaned heavily on small ball. Eastern led the NCAA in sacrifice bunts with 72. However, that won’t necessarily be the blueprint this season.
“That’s not my definite standard way of playing,” Anderson said. “We’re older, so we’re going to try to drive the ball a little bit more and not give up so many outs.”
The Panthers have nine position players with four or more years of collegiate experience. That veteran presence, hitting coach Mike Pugliese said, has helped the normal learning curve move a little quicker this year especially with several players now in their third or fourth year at Eastern.
“I think coach Anderson does a good job of reading the game, reading the situation, with where we’re at as a team, and playing to the game,” Pugliese said. “And that’s what I ask of our guys is approach to the game. We’re always gonna be ready to hit, but better yet we’re always ready to do whatever it takes to win the game.”
Pugliese and Anderson both said they can put together a variety of different lineups and still be competitive every game due to them believing all 22 of their position players can help them win this season.
“We know we’re not going to go undefeated on the year, but we’re good enough that we can go into compete for a win each game that we play this year,” Anderson said.
One guy Pugliese highlighted for the upcoming season is 2025 OVC-All Freshman Team sophomore infielder James Love.
“Love has been a guy that’s really put it together and got older, bigger, faster, stronger, and more mature and how he goes about his work,” Pugliese said.
Eastern also returned two more regular season OVC award winning position players in All-OVC First Team senior infielder Mike O’Conor and All-Freshman Team sophomore outfielder Jake Ottensmeier. Plus three that were named to the OVC All-Tournament Team in O’Conor, Castro and senior outfielder Ethan Rossi.
Pitching: new faces, familiar anchors
The Panthers lost 2025 All‑OVC First Team left‑handed starting pitcher Tyler Kapraun but added 15 new pitchers.
They also return 31 of last season’s 53 regular‑season starts, including 13-of-24 in OVC play.
All 13 returning OVC starts are coming from 2025 All-OVC Second Team starting pitcher Conklin and junior right-hander Anthony Solis.
Another big arm returning is junior right-handed pitcher Bryce Riggs, a do-it-all option last season that had the best ERA on the team at 2.30. Plus, he threw a complete game in the semifinals of the OVC championships, only allowing one run, and was named to the All-Tournament team.
Conklin has been the opening day starter the last two years, and Solis and Riggs both had what pitching coach Max Fecske said were tremendous sophomore years.
Fecske said this offseason they have both developed even more physically and mentally.
“I think that starts with Tyler Conklin, a guy who’s been five years in the program,” Fecske said. “They’re three years in the program. They kind of feed off of each other, and it’s a really cool environment when you have older guys taking younger guys under their wing and helping them along.”
Two other key pitchers coming back are senior right-handed pitcher Dalton Boruff, who led the team in appearances and save with 22 and five respectively, and senior right-handed pitcher Nate Marshall, who had the seventh most innings pitched last year at 29 and two-thirds and tied Conklin for the second-best ERA at 3.94.
Anderson and Fecske both said they will both again be major contributors this season.
The team’s biggest pitching difference from last year is going to be the back end of the bullpen, Fescke said.
“We’re gonna need to figure out kind of who’s who and what’s what as we go through the beginning part of the year,” Fescke said. “But by the time we get to conference, hopefully we can find some kind of a rhythm and be rolling in with some kind of a seemingly set rotation by then.”
Heading to Florida
Eastern starts its season Friday in Tallahassee, Florida, with a four-game series against Florida A&M. It’s the same opponent the Panthers began their 2023 and 2024 campaigns against, and Eastern split those series across the two years.
Anderson said good preparation and aggressiveness are major keys toward winning for this team.
“The fun isn’t the travel in the country,” Anderson said. “The fun is taking W’s back on the bus and celebrating with your teammates.”
This game will be one of the team’s first taste of playing outside at all this year, which causes an adjustment for defense especially.
“It’s very exciting having everyone back for the most part. We’ve had some good new additions, so we’re hoping to go down there and have some success like we did towards the end of the year last year,” Rossi said.
The team will play its first game in Illinois on March 3 against The University of Illinois and its first home game on March 11 against Illinois Wesleyan.
The start of OVC play is on March 20 in St. Charles, Missouri, against Lindenwood.
Bryce Parker can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].
