Dunn Sees UAB Baseball’s Breakout Season as a Beginning
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - May 24, 2026
Casey Dunn’s biggest recruiting efforts this offseason could very well come within his own UAB baseball program. Keeping the pieces of a team that won 32 games, stayed in the race for the American Conference championship until the end of the regular season and were considered at one point to be a possible at-large entrant into the NCAA Regionals is imperative.
“I mean, I think retention is the key word in today’s world,” Dunn said on Saturday in his postgame press conference following the season-ending 14-12 loss to Wichita State in the American Conference Tournament. “You know, if we hold on to these guys and they commit, this year isn't necessarily the end. It's really the beginning of what we can do with this program. I think that's the message that they're going to hear is that today is the beginning. You know, this season wasn't an end. It's the beginning. You know, obviously losing (Wesley Helms) is going to be tough to replace because of just the steady presence he brought to us. Chase Ingram has been great for us all year. There's so many big innings (he’s thrown). He's going to be a big piece to replace. And Mason (Steele) will go in the draft. But outside of those three guys, we get the core of the group back. And for those guys to experience this, to experience the heartbreak, but compete well this year, is really encouraging about what this program can do moving forward.”
Losing Helms is undoubtedly going to sting. The 6-foot-1, 200-pound local product played in 105 games over the last seasons. This year he was second on the team with a .327 average, led the way with 71 hits and was one of the best defensive first basemen in the conference. Helms, who originally signed with Auburn and played two years at Shelton State, also was an unquestioned leader on the team.
“I don't want to say he's like our dad or nothing because he is older than all of us,” outfielder/designated hitter John Paul Head said. “But he does have that level of maturity to where he's had three more years of baseball than most of us, two or three. And he's been in all these big-time situations before. He knows what he's doing and we listen to him.”
Other than that, the Blazers didn’t have a ton of experience coming into the season. Head and Landon Beaver played some as true freshman but were expected to be two of the most productive players in the lineup this season. A pair of freshmen – shortstop Baylor Roberts and catcher Austin Pierzynski – were expected to play critical roles and there were other newcomers spread throughout the lineup.
Dunn, the American Conference Coach of the Year, talked about the youth on Friday after his team claimed a 9-6 tournament win over Rice with a ninth-inning rally.
“I mean, I would assume we're the youngest team in this tournament by probably a decent amount and that's the exciting thing,” Dunn said. “I probably told you this before the year, this was either going to be a year (where) it’s like ‘Dang, it's a pretty good young group’ or ‘Man, wait to next year.’ You know, thankfully, we've been able to do some good things this year to where it's been a good season.”
On April 26, the Blazers were 28-16 following a 11-2 win over Memphis that clinched a series victory. Many thought they were on the good side of the NCAA Regionals bubble and they were tied at the top of the conference standings. The Blazers followed with eight losses in the final 11 games of the regular season with two of those wins coming in a series win over conference champion UTSA. With a shorthanded pitching staff that was worn out by that time in the season, UAB allowed double digit runs in nine of the last 11 games.
Offensively, UAB was a force throughout the season. Head led the team with a .329 batting average and led the conference with 22 home runs. He came up one home run short of tying the American Conference and UAB record in single season home runs. As a team, the Blazers hit a school record 85 home runs with Alex Dupuy finishing second on the team with 10. Head, Helms, Brady Waugh (.322), Andrew Hunt (.320) and Beaver (.310) were steady throughout the season, Kevin Hall Jr. (.277, 21 steals, 54 runs) provided a spark from his leadoff spot and Dupuy (.272) was a clutch hitter from the cleanup spot.
Bringing back and developing that core will be huge as Dunn and his staff also work to build quality pitching depth.
“When you play 50 or whatever games that we just played, fatigue factors in,” Dunn said. “Some guys need to spend the summer training and just getting stronger, getting their body in shape. Some guys need to go off and play. We've got a couple guys that'll have a chance to go up to the (Cape Cod League), which I just think is so important from a draft standpoint. As much as I'd like to tell those guys to hang at the house and recover a little bit, they need to go off to help themselves for next year and put up some numbers this summer. JP and Landon will be up there. They need to be in that league and get that exposure. And it's good for our program, too, to obviously have guys play at that level. But a lot of these guys, especially guys on the mound that threw a bunch, we really need a good summer with them. They need to buy into the weight room, buy into the development process for summer, and let the arm recover a little bit and then get back to work.”