Picked Last. Sitting First. UAB Is Proving Everyone Wrong.
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - April 30, 2026
Saying the UAB baseball team entered this season with low expectations might be an understatement. Truth is, when it came to American Conference play, there was no expectation, at least from an outside perspective, that the Blazers would have any success after being selected to finish last in the conference in a preseason poll voted on by the league’s coaches.
The UAB players didn’t let that bit of news go by unnoticed.
“I mean, being preseason, placed at 10, that was a big motivation factor for us to just have that extra little push,” said pitcher Chase Ingram. “We had it posted in the locker room, actually. It was just like a really big thing. Like, ‘Hey, we got to go prove everybody wrong. We know we got what it takes and we know we're not last in this conference.’”
Saying that is perhaps the easiest part of the battle. More importantly, proving that point is the objective.
“I mean, up to this point, we've seen that we're not,” Ingram said.
Truthfully, they’re proving the opposite.
“It was always like, I'm going to do good and push the guy next to me, and they're going to do good to push me,” said designated hitter Landon Beaver, who is second on the team in batting average (.312) and hits (49) and leads the way with 13 doubles. “It was like building that foundation of we're going to push each other to the best of our abilities. So when the ranking came out that we were last in the conference, I just told myself, there's no way that's who we're going to be. I didn't think anybody on the team thought that's who we are or who we're going to be. I feel like we've proven that to this point. In a way, when you see a ranking like that, obviously it motivates you and makes you mad.”
UAB is 28-16 overall and with a 12-6 conferece mark currently sits in a first-place tie in The American with UTSA and East Carolina. The Blazers won four of the team’s six conference series thus far, including back-to-back sweeps against Tulane at home and Florida Atlantic on the road. The last time UAB swept a conference series, before this season, was in 2016. The last time the Blazers swept a conference series on the road was 2015. UAB also has non-conference wins over a pair of nationally ranked SEC teams – Florida and Alabama – and beat a Jacksonville State team that is currently leads Conference USA and has 36 wins.
The Blazers are getting a different type of notice than they did in the preseason polls. UAB is listed among the teams receiving votes in the NCBWA Top 25 and is mentioned as one of five teams also considered in the Perfect Game Top 25. The Blazers has also been mentioned as possible at-large entrant in the NCAA Regionals if they don’t claim the automatic berth by winning the conference tournament. UAB played in the NCAA Regionals just twice in the program’s history and both times came after winning the conference tournament.
“Obviously winning gets recognition and gets attention, so it's what you want,” said UAB head coach Casey Dunn, whose team plays a weekend series at conference foe Rice with the first game scheduled for Friday. “You just got to understand why you're getting it. In our case, we're getting it because we've played good baseball. We've overachieved a little bit with this group and we've got some guys that have a little chip on their shoulder and want to prove that they're pretty good. We just got to continue to play that way.”
The winning formula is often different from one game to another. The Blazers have hit 62 home runs, which is already fifth best in school history with 11 regular season games remaining, and John Paul Head’s 16 home runs lead the league in that category. The Blazers also have walked 234 times, which is third most in The American, and won several games by playing small ball. Mason Steele is the leader on the mound with a 5-2 record and 3.60 ERA in his 10 starts and Brendan Conner, who is 4-1 with two saves has been excellent. The team earned run average of 5.91 is eighth in the conference but they have come up with a ton of clutch performances as a staff throughout the season.
Eight times this season the Blazers have scored the winning run on their final at-bat and they are 11-5 in games decided by three runs or less. One of the walk-off wins came in the first game of last week’s important conference series when Memphis when 11th inning home runs by Austin Pierzynski and Kevin Hall Jr. erased the lead that the Tigers had grabbed in the top of the inning. Dunn joked on Tuesday that he didn’t “enjoy the first 10 innings of that game” but admitted the ending was enjoyable when his team found a way to scrap out a win. In that game, Steele was slated to start after missing his previous start to rest. However, just before the first pitch Steele became ill with dehydration.
“Your best guy, your Friday night guy, stands up for the anthem and then all of a sudden he can't go,” Dunn said. “I thought our guys handled that really well. You know, Chase (Ingram) was unbelievable. He was literally running to the bullpen during the national anthem to get ready. He was able to go and he throws six innings for us.”
Ingram allowed four hits and three runs, all earned, while striking out five and walking one. He left with the Blazers leading, 4-3. That is just one of a long list of examples of this UAB team overcoming barriers and finding a way to win.
“We just got a lot of guys who have grit,” said first baseman Wesley Helms, who leads the team in hits with 51. “I mean, that's really the main thing to it. That goes back to people wanting to be out here and loving baseball. It’s just always believing we're in it, even when we're behind. That's been a big thing this year and just never doubting ourselves.”
This is also a team that had to jell together quickly, beginning in the fall. Pitcher Tyler Haines is in his fifth season in the program and Ingram and fellow pitchers Isaac Warrick and Braxton Shelton are in their fourth season with the Blazers. There are a handful of players who contributed last season but Dunn and his staff had to bring in a bunch of new pieces to the puzzle.
Andrew Hunt joined the team last year from Wallace State but was redshirted. He’s come on this year to currently lead the team with a .329 batting average. Hall, who sparks the offense from his leadoff spot and has been outstanding in centerfield, found a new home at UAB after his previous school, Purdue Fort Wayne, shut down its baseball program. Steele arrived this season from Shelton State to lead the pitching staff. Max Price came from California to share the catching duties with freshman Pierzynski and shortstop Baylor Roberts has pieced together a strong true freshman season. Alex Dupuy, a transfer from LSU Eunice, has been solid at third base and is one of seven players with at least 44 hits. Second baseman Brady Waugh came in from Shelton State to hover around the .300 mark all season and regularly deliver in clutch situations.
“Everybody was so new and we had so many pieces to put together,” Helms said. “Obviously, that's not easy, but we had a group that bought in and everybody became close, which helps a lot. Everybody's having fun out here, and that's the biggest thing. I mean, winning's fun, so it makes it easier. But, like I said, a lot of new pieces, but it all ended up working out, which is good.”
Perhaps the core of the 35-man roster comes from in-state players. The Blazers have nine players from the Birmingham metro area and 10 more from around the state of Alabama. The top four on the team in batting average – Hunt, Beaver, Helms and Head – are from Alabama.
“I mean, it's on purpose because baseball is good in our area,” Dunn said. “We need to be able to get the guys close by that are good because the reality is in our world, an in-state kid is cheaper than an out-of-state kid. You talk about the cost of school and stuff, that is important to us. But more than anything, wherever they're from, it's a group of guys that want to be here. They like to play here. They've got some pride in UAB. They've got pride in trying to make this something it hasn't been. Whether it's Landon and John Paul from Alabama or the (other) local guys or guys like Max from California, they want to be here. He wanted to come east. You got Kevin from Chicago. He wanted to come south. Those are guys that have been at different places but I think they have embraced being here and a lot of that is because the people that are part of this program have embraced them.”