A perennial JUCO powerhouse on a national level, Wabash Valley has enjoyed tremendous amounts of success, reaching the NJCAA Division I World Series as recently as 2023, where they finished as national runner-ups. The Warriors have won the Great Rivers Athletic Conference (GRAC) 16 times, are 11 time Region 24 champions, and have amassed the 40+ win mark in 27 of the past 28 years. 

Head coach Aaron Biddle’s group looks plenty formidable heading into this upcoming season and the Warriors should be viewed as one of the top teams in the GRAC. 

POSITION PLAYERS

This will be a relatively new Warriors’ offense, with nearly 900 at-bats departing from a season ago. 

One core staple from their 2024 group does return, though, with sophomore INF Enrico Veach. The Louisville commit was excellent for Wabash in his freshman campaign, batting .341 and posting a .871 OPS while walking 28 times and swiping 16 bags. A year older, Veach will likely serve as the Warriors’ everyday shortstop and be relied on as one of their main offensive contributors once more. 

Aside from Veach, the Warriors have a multitude of other sophomores scattered throughout their lineup. INF Connor Christenson is a left-handed hitter that hit .314 and homered twice in 51 at-bats last spring that is expected to climb into an everyday role. Sophomore INF/RHP Drake DeFreitas earned the All-Region Gold Glove last season, had a strong fall at the plate, and is also an upper-80s arm on the mound that can really spin a sharp slider. 1B RJ Lopez and 1B Owen Cornett are a pair of physical, uncommitted sophomores that both have advanced raw power from their respective sides of the plate. 

R-FR C JT Stiner transfers in from UNC-Wilmington and showed well in our fall looks, while R-FR C Hector Roca (Bradley commit) has one of the stronger arms from behind the plate in the Illinois’ JUCO scene. Soph OF Logan Marsell, Soph INF Brooks Barber, Soph MIF Konner Brown and R-FR OF Bryce Adams are three other names to know that deepen this offense. 

Wabash also has two freshmen who are capable of being immediate impacts in OF/1B Brady Schallmoser and OF Tyler Peller. Dating back to his high school days at Downers Grove South (IL), Schallmoser has always hit, swinging a polished and highly impactful left-handed barrel. He looked plenty advanced for his age in all of our looks this fall and could easily be one of the more productive freshmen in the GRAC this spring. Peller, an Indiana native, also carries plenty of impact from the left side, and the ball sounds different when it carries off his barrel, which he showed when our staff saw the Warriors this fall. 

PITCHERS

Leading the charge for the Warriors’ pitching staff this spring is sophomore LHP Hayden Alexander, a transfer from Three Rivers CC (MO) that’s committed to Western Kentucky. Alexander checks a ton of boxes from a frontline arm standpoint – he’s athletic with a loose arm and has a true three pitch mix. His fastball played in the upper-80s, bumping into the low-90s on occasion, in our looks this fall, and he compliments it with a true diving changeup that he’s consistently shown advanced feel for at 76-79 mph. His third pitch is a 74-78 mph (2600-2800 RPM) breaking ball that he’s comfortable manipulating shape on; he can show more vertical drop/depth from a higher arm slot, or maintain his fastball slot and create true sweep. Expect a strong spring season from Alexander if he’s in the zone consistently, one that would give Wabash Valley a reliable top-of-the-rotation arm in each conference series.

A pair of uncommitted sophomore arms that were contributors last year that are now expected to shoulder even bigger workloads as potential rotation pieces: RHP Bennett Holdener and LHP Dylan Thompson. 

+ Holdener made 12 starts, and 16 appearances, for the Warriors as a freshman last season, pitching to a 4.50 ERA across 48 innings of work, walking only 16. He’s a strong, broad-shouldered, and physical athlete whose fastball sits anywhere from the upper-80s to the low-90s. In our looks, Holdener has shown advanced feel for a 79-81 mph changeup with natural arm-side run, and he also spins a short, tight slider in the mid/upper-70s (2500-2800 RPM). 

+ Thompson, like his counterpart, did nothing but fill up the strike zone with three pitches when we saw him this fall. He bumped his fastball up to 91 mph, pitching in the upper-80s, and consistently established it down in the zone with the ability to climb up when needed. The separator for Thompson is the ability and feel he has for both of his secondaries. He throws a hard, tight slider at 79-81 mph with tilt and can comfortably turn over a fading changeup at 80-81 mph that exclusively played on the arm-side corner in our looks. Thompson has taken a big jump this fall, one that has the uncommitted sophomore left-hander poised to play a big role for this pitching staff in 2026. 

There are a bulk of arms on this Wabash pitching staff with the talent to get outs on a consistent basis. R-Soph RHP Brendan Mullin (Murray State) has a mid/upper-80s sinker from a true, unconventional submarine slot. R-Soph RHP Trevor Fishman returns a 3.43 ERA over 44 ⅔ IP, punching out 51 and walking 19 in that span. He’s a physical 6-foot-4, 215-pound uncommitted right-hander whose fastball plays in the upper-80s and spins a mid-70s sweeper off it. 

R-FR RHP Matty Helms, a Northern Kentucky transfer, is a 6-foot-4, 220-pound arm that touched 90 mph when we saw him this fall, pitching in the upper-80s. He showed a 78-80 mph changeup to left-handed hitters in our look and also spun a breaking ball at 74-76 mph. Soph RHP Preston Barr is another upper-80s to low-90s arm on this staff that can carry his fastball and also establish it down in the zone. He spun a short breaking ball with tight, downer spin at the Dinger JUCO Showcase at 76-78 mph. Soph RHP Larsen Burch threw well at the ScoutConnect JUCO Invite, pitching in the upper-80s with his fastball and throwing two different breaking balls; a harder, shorter slider at 79-81 mph and a bigger, bendy curveball at 74-75 mph. R-FR LHP Simon Skroch and R-FR RHP Ben Mazur are two other names to keep an eye on. 

The Warriors have a pair of freshman arms that are capable of bringing positives to the table from the get go. RHP Ryan Sanders is a power arm with a true carry fastball that sat 88-90, touching 91 mph at the Dinger JUCO Showcase, that he paired with a sharp slider in the upper-70s. RHP Michael Furmanek has a unique, over-the-top delivery that finishes out of a true ¾ arm slot that creates all sorts of movement with his FB/SL mix.