UConn Baseball Weekly: 2026 in review
An overview of the Huskies' campaign and where they go this offseason.
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Now what?
The most underwhelming season in UConn’s Big East era ended with a thud. The Huskies were dispatched from the Big East tournament in two swift strikes: a gut-punch by Xavier in the opening game, followed by Creighton’s knockout blow just hours later.
St. John’s went 3-0, hanging 17 runs on Xavier in its second game, and is gearing up to play No. 10 Florida State in its first game of the NCAA Tournament at the time of writing. The Red Storm, after starting the season 1-10, are the league’s lone representative.
The Huskies, now NCAA tournament outsiders for a second consecutive season, have just a third of a share of the Big East regular season title to show after finishing six games over .500 at 32-26.
A number of players had good campaigns. Jackson Marshall, Cayden Suchy, Cam Righi, and UConn’s slew of all-conference players can hang their hats on those accolades.
And yet the lone number the 2026 group will add to the outfield fence at Elliot Ballpark will be outlined in blue, not red.
This season will merely be a footnote in this program’s history — a program that appears to be trending down with two straight tournament misses and ground lost in the Big East.
The season is familiar, in many ways, to last. HookC boasted the conference’s top player, Marshall, and 2025 Big East POTY Ryan Daniels. They struggled out of conference, doing poorly against eventual NCAA tournament teams. All year, they flirted in the 80-100 RPI range, never really coming close to a case for an at-large bid.
UConn simply didn’t have the runs. It looked like Jim Penders’ squad had its best weekend rotation since rejoining the conference; the 2026 staff posted UConn’s lowest combined ERA since 2022 (4.38). The hitting was too quiet and far too inconsistent.
The Huskies hit 61 home runs in 2026, their lowest total in the last five years and 36 fewer than last year. A team-wide .442 slugging percentage ranked last in that timeframe, as did the team’s 550 hits, as did its 390 runs. Last year, six qualified players hit over .300. This year, only two did so (Marshall, Righi).
They also had some deficiencies in the field. Their 64 errors are the most in the last five seasons as well.
What comes next
The Huskies were relatively young this year and won’t have to worry about graduating much of their core.
Brown transfer Paxton Meyers, the team leader in appearances, headlines the class of players moving on. Senior Greg Shaw III has four years of competition under his belt and is likely done as well. Utilityman Anthony Belisario has announced his intent to enter the transfer portal. UConn will get even more youthful next year when it welcomes its 2027 recruits, 10 in total.
The focus for Jim Penders is ideally retention and diamonds in the rough via the portal. UConn had some hits from the transfer portal: Marshall, of course, but also Peyton Jemison, Chris Polemeni, and Nater Wachter.
They also had some misses. Ensuring key pieces don’t enter in search of extra dollars, better opportunity, etc., is a top priority. The transfer class’ position player group was a bit of a mixed bag. A look at a few, including their games played, triple-slash line and notable stats:
Nater Wachter (SNHU): 58 games* | .273/.379/.431 | 13 2B, 34 RBI, 67 K*
Jackson Marshall (SNHU): 57 games | .384*/.483*/.679* | 86 H*, 37 XBH*, 60 RBI*
Chris Polemeni (Staten Island): 51 games | .297/.410/.484 | 57 H, 14 SB*
Evan Menzel (Maine): 46 games | .231/.302/.320 | 11 errors*
Peyton Jemison (Mercy): 34 games | .278/.358/.400 | 25 H
Steve Thomas (Catholic): 13 games | .250/.464/.250 | 5 H, 8 Ks
* denotes that player led or tied all qualified hitters in that category
Wachter’s doubles ranked second, but he had by far the most fanouts in the lineup. Righi’s 43 strikeouts were the next closest. Menzel was ultimately dropped from the starting nine toward the end of the season, as offensive and defensive inconsistencies sprung Jemison to take over at 2B. Thomas, even with Connor Lane’s unfortunate injury that led him to convert into a pitcher, never stuck behind the plate. Righi, Gabriel Tirado and Chris Cancel handled those duties throughout the year. 2026 will be Thomas’ only year with UConn, as he is due to graduate.
And a look at four transfer pitchers:
Charlie Hale (Endicott): 19 appearances, 7 starts | 2.89 ERA | 62.1 IP, 60 Ks, 7 wins*
Austin Trumpour (SNHU): 11 appearances | 3.00 ERA | 21.0 IP, 13 Ks
Rob Gilchrist (Pace): 10 appearances | 10.80 ERA | 10.0 IP, 7 Ks
Tristan Aasland (Bellevue CC): 4 appearances, 3 starts | 8.48 ERA | 11.2 IP, 12 Ks
Jim Penders struck gold with Greg Shaw III and Oliver Pudvar, both Manhattan products, out of the portal last season. He did so again with Hale and got solid production out of Trumpour, but is still waiting on Gilchrist and Aasland to turn the corner. Meyers (Brown) and Garret Garbinski (Manhattan, 11 appearances, 7.16 ERA) are omitted from this list despite pitching in their first season with UConn since transferring. Both were on the 2025 roster, missing the year with respective injuries.
Names to watch
Players who naturally draw interest after standout seasons, like UConn’s quartet of top arms: Suchy, Charlie West, Pudvar, and Hale could all draw offers from top-tier Division I programs. We saw Tommy Ellisen make a similar move last season, leaving for Georgia. Suchy is best primed for a similar move. Newfound notoriety coming off an elite season, plus two years of remaining eligibility, likely has him on many coaches’ radars.
As for the lineup, all eyes will naturally be on Marshall to possibly move up after a breakout season. Tyler Minick and Rob Rispoli headlined that category last year, but both opted to return. After seasons plagued by injury and underperformance, both are safe bets to return.
The portal opens for business on June 1 and closes on June 30. We will be tracking all of UConn’s activity throughout the month. The Huskies are sure to be active.
Performance against NCAA Tournament teams
Now that the field is official, let’s take a look at UConn’s performance against the 64 tournament-bound teams. Last year, the Huskies went 8-11 against such squads.
UConn played five eventual tournament teams in 2026, down from 10 last year. The Huskies kicked their season off against a regional host and 13-seed Nebraska. They played another Lincoln Regional opponent, Arizona State, four days later. Two games against Northeastern (Lawrence Regional) and Boston College (Athens Regional), plus the weekend series with conference champion St. John’s (Tallahassee Regional), bring the team’s total to nine games.
UConn went 2-7 in those games, collecting wins over Northeastern and St. John’s, the latter the finale of their weekend series. In both wins, oddly enough, UConn enacted the run-rule.
Thank you!
This concludes the fourth season of the Hook C Baseball newsletter. Things looked understandably a bit different this year with the launch of our premium option and the exit of Shawn, but whether you read, shared, or subscribed, we want to say thank you for joining us for the ride. It was not a perfect season, but the support is unequivocally appreciated, nonetheless.
We aren’t going anywhere over the summer. Transfer news, updates on Huskies in the pros, 2027 predictions, previews, and projections are all soon to come. We’ll have a roundup coming next week of where some current Huskies are due to play their summer ball. So stay tuned!
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