#Risewithus

2023 Incoming Class Reese Mooney -  Mooney Came on Flames Nation's radar from Football first.  He was originally committed to Vanderbilt to play QB but wanted to give both sports a shot.  Depending on the publication, he's currently the top rated recruit in the football class with a .87 ranking on 247 sports He had over 30 football scholarship offers in Football.  Mooney is a SS/3B and won 1st team all district,  Mooney hit .342 with a .470 OBP including 9 doubles 3 triples, a homer and was 13-14 in Stolen Bases (our future QB can run a bit).  Mooney was rated the number 2 overall 3rd basemen in the state of Louisiana.  At one time, Mooney had committed to Houston to play baseball before it became clear he could play both sports at the D1 level.   Brian Mclellin - The Flames recently picked up a commitment from Mclellin who was the starting SS at JUCO San Joaquin Delta where he hit ,358 with 3 homers and 35 RBI's to go along with 11 stolen ...

  Liberty still has a lot of Former players in the minor leagues.  Now that we're just under 2 months into the MLB and MILB season I figured now was a good time to check in the former Flames. DJ Artis - Artis was drafted in the 7th round of the 2018 draft by the Cubs.  He's currently on the 7 day DL and is with High A South Bend in his age 26 season.  He's hitting .331 in 21 AB's on the season with 5 stolen bases and a .481 OBP.  DJ's going to need to get it going pretty quickly as he's one of the older players at the High A level.  Injuries have sidetracked him the past few years.  Update : The Tennessee Smokies have released DJ as of July 19.  DJ hit just .125 in 8 at bats before being released after being activated off the Injured list.   Fraser Ellard - Ellard was drafted in the 8th round of the 2021 Draft after a phenomenal year with Liberty.  It was rumored that Ellard had a shot to start camp with the White Sox but suffered...

  CUSA  Liberty will make the long awaited move to CUSA in 2024.  The Flames will be leaving a solid baseball league in the ASUN but CUSA should be a significant step up.  Let's take a look at the future conference foes and how they fared in 2023.  Dallas Baptist - The Patriots are a powerhouse and went 45-13 and sit at 14th in the RPI and were in the discussion to get a regional host.  They also had the 28th rated SOS.  DBU will likely be the pre-season CUSA favorite.  LA Tech - The Bulldogs mirrored Liberty as they finished 28-31 and 128th in the RPI.  Their SOS was 78th.  That's the worst season LA Tech has had in a long time but they lost a lot of pieces off a loaded team that hosted a regional in 2022.  I would expect them to bounce back to their usual form.  Western Kentucky - The Hilltoppers went 33-26 and finished 138 in the RPI.  They had a brutal 8 game losing streak in the middle of the season that sunk their...

  The 2023 season came to a close Saturday as Liberty to Lipscomb 7 to 3 in the semi-finals of the ASUN tournament in Deland Florida.  That will also close the book on Liberty's time in the ASUN.  The ASUN gets a lot of heat among the Liberty fan base and some of it's certainly warranted but it was a nice landing spot for the Flames that treated them well overall the last few years.  As for the season itself, it just never really got on track the way Liberty Baseball expects to.  There were some great moments and some incredible young guys that developed over the course of the season.  The action is still going as of now Liberty is at 97 in the RPI and has the 2nd toughest non conference SOS in the nation and 48th overall.  Liberty got swept early at Southern Miss who was in contention to host yet another regional and then later were swept by ECU and Stetson on the road as well.  The Flames were also unable to secure a series sweep this year....

  The 2023 Regular Season has come and gone.  It saw the Flames finish 26-28 overall and 16 and 14 in the ASUN and finishing with an RPI of 92.  They ended up with the #48 toughest schedule overall and the #1 OOC schedule.  The season was a true roller coaster in every sense.  The Flames finished the last 6 games 4 and 2 and will look to ride that success into their last dance in the ASUN tournament.  This year, they know there's only way 1 to stay alive and that's to survive and advance through pool play and take home the championship.  The ASUN has a pool play format that puts the top RPI teams in the top pod to protect the RPI.  Then it's a Hunger games type brawl in the lower pod.  Look at Liberty's RPI from this past weekend to see why this type of set-up was put in place.  They won 2 of 3 at home against Bellarmine and dropped 20 spots.    There's really 2 ways to win in the post-season.  You can try to slug  yo...

 Liberty : 22-25 Home : 13-8 Away: 9-17 Q1: 1-11 Q2: 4-2 Q3: 7-8 Q4: 10-4 RPI : 70 SOS :30 Non Conference SOS : 1st ASUN : 12-12 The 2023 season has been a roller coaster all year but this past weekend may have reached it's peak.  It's been easy to get frustrated and write this season off several times including after last week's 0 and 4 showing on the road that saw the Flames blow multiple leads.  Then in true roller coaster fashion they bounce back to walk off a top 50 ODU club for a series sweep and rebound from a disappointing Friday opener that really wasn't competitive.  Then the Flames bounce back to run rule the Gamecocks on both Saturday and Sunday including 16 runs in the final 3 innings including 11 in the 6th.  You just can't give up on this team with the way things are going.  An at-large doesn't seem to be in the cards barring a virtually undefeated run through the rest of the regular season an ASUN tournament (and loss in title game) because ...