January 1, 2022


Well, it's officially the New Year.  For me and most of you baseball diehards that means we are just under 45 days or so away from the road to Omaha which will start in Gainesville this year.  It's still relatively quiet in the burg and it will be for another week or so until players start to trickle back in for that all so crucial 4 week stretch right before the start of the new year.  It's likely that most of the decisions have already been made on who will be on the active roster and who may redshirt (not counting injury) of course.  That being said there have been a few pieces of news break since we last wrote.  

*Aaron Anderson was named a pre-season All American by the Collegiate Baseball publication which is one of the more respected publications.  Anderson was the only player from the ASUN to receive the recognition.  Anderson was a key cog in the Flames offensive attack and provided a spark from the LH and RH sides of the plate in year 1.  He also moved off 1B to allow the Flames to keep Logan Mathieu's power bat in the lineup and played a pretty darn good LF for most of the year.  Having made that transition myself I can tell you that outfield is completely different from infield.  The ball also comes off the bat completely different from the right side to the left side.  

*The Collegiate Baseball newspaper also has Liberty at #37 in the first poll of the year.  Again, no other ASUN teams were in the top 50.  Note that future CUSA rival LA Tech was at #15 coming of another tremendous year in which they hosted a regional.  I can't wait to see these 2 programs vie for the title.  It has all the feels of Coastal and Liberty from the Big South days.  

*Other teams of note that the Flames will play

-Florida #6, UVA #24, UNC #25, Duke #28, Campbell #29

The Flames will have obviously have a very difficult schedule again this year as they have 11 games against teams in the top 29 of the pre-season.  I would expect as the season gets going 75% or so of the games on the schedule this year will be Warren Nolan top 100 teams including Wake Forest, VT, VCU & several of the ASUN schools.  

A couple other changes include the Flames welcoming former middle infielder Andrew Kowalo back into the fold as the volunteer assistant coach.  Also former Outfielder John O'Connor has rejoined the program as Director of Player Development.   These changes should benefit the program as both of these guys know what's it's like to play and go to school at Liberty and can really help with new kids coming in and recruits.   

It feels like the Flames have a chance at some real long term stability with the coaching staff now that they have been able to keep Matt Williams after South Carolina made a huge run at him to be their pitching coach.  Success will always have others knocking but Jackson & Co. are building something special at Liberty.  Take a look at the football program which just lost 2 coaches including DC Scott Symons to SMU.  Retaining the staff and getting quality guys like Kowalo and O'Connor on staff are moves that don't get a lot of attention but mean everything in long term sustainability.  Tyler Cannon and Daniel Brown have been with Jackson since he first returned to the mountain.  

Flames Nation rest easy.  The program has never been in better hands from top to bottom and I really think 2022 could be the year that we break through the regional final into a Super Regional which the program has been chasing for a number of years.  

#Risewithus

Brent 


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