The Trojans look for another historic season in 2024
Troy Baseball
After their first 40-win season and first trip to the regionals since 2018 last season, the Trojans are looking to raise the bar yet again in the 2024 season. Skylar Meade who enters into his third season as the head coach of the Trojans says this year’s team is coming back even stronger.
“Everyone that is back is better. There are guys that you know we mentioned that we’ve recruited that we know are elite players that have already done things at other places in which they have been,” says Meade.
The Trojans have brought in not only several recruits from the high school ranks but also several players from the transfer portal. According to D1baseball.com the Trojans transfer class ranks 17th in the nation and includes several top players from the JUCO ranks, Western Kentucky, Charlotte, Clemson, Auburn, and the 2023 National Runner-up Florida.
“It’s an excellent group, it provides us the depth in which you need. We did not have this depth two years ago going into the season, now having depth, you think that you can over come the things that are certainly going to happen through the course of a season,” says Meade.
In addition to the new players Troy has brought in this season, the Trojans also return quite a few standouts from last season’s roster. Outfielder Shane Lewis (Junior) and right-handed pitcher Noah Manning (senior) have earned preseason All-American honors by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. In addition to being named preseason All-Americans, both Lewis and Manning were named preseason All-Sun Belt. Also earning preseason Sun Belt honors from Troy is right-handed pitcher Grayson Stewart (junior) who was named preseason Sun Belt Pitcher of the Year.
“We’re right where we need to be to be successful from the jump and I know that if I don’t get the job done when I need to I know that the guy behind me or the guy in front of me will get it done,” says Lewis.
“I’m really excited. My favorite thing to do is close games and I hope I get a tone of opportunities to do so but I think this team is going to be really good and we’re going to score a lot of runs and maybe I don’t have to be in so many save opportunities this year because we win games by lots of runs,” says Manning.
Last year the Trojans leaned into the motto of “you never know.” This season the team will lean into a new team mantra and that’s “everything counts.”
“You know I think when you have that physicality, you look that part, you believe that you are the part, and you have that experience both in returners who got a little taste of success and you have a lot of new guys who have also experienced it in different ways, I think everybody is chomping at the bit to showcase what we’ll be about,” says Meade.
The Trojans rank third in the preseason Sun Belt Coaches Poll and will kick off their 2024 campaign on Friday February 16th at 4:00
against Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
(Information from Troy University)
