#Risewithus

The Flames have turned up the heat on the recruiting trail here in the final week of June.  Liberty has added 5 commitments from the transfer portal and will most likely add 1 to 2 more.  Here's a look at what they've picked up. Jordan Jaffe - Jaffe is a right handed hitting Corner Infielder/DH that has just flat raked for 3 years at Richmond.  He finished 2025 with a .364 BA, 10 HR's and 59 RBI's and a whopping 1.028 OPS.  In 2024 his stat line was .317 10 HR's 44 RBI's and .964 OPS.  In 2023 he hit .314 with 12 HR's 59 RBI's and a .989 OPS.  As you can see he will easily slot in the middle of the order with Nick Barone & Jaxon Sorenson and provide the Flames with another big time RH bat.  Jaffe was highly sought after and is 1 of the most proven bats the Flames have picked up from an equal or higher level of competition in the portal era.   Ryan Drumm - Drumm is a right handed hitting Outfielder that can play all 3 spots from Butler....

  The 2025 season is in the rearview and the Flames set their sights on 2026.  Liberty lost pitching coach Andrew See who led Liberty to the 2nd best ERA in CUSA in his lone season with the Flames.  Virtually the entire pitching staff had their best year of their career with the Flames and See.  Kendall Rogers reported today that the Flames were able to make a huge hire and pull Keller Bradford away from his role as Pitching Coach with Southern Miss.  Bradford finished his collegiate career at Southern Miss and spent the last 2 seasons as the PC for the Golden Eagles.  The Golden Eagles had a team ERA of 4.03 and held opponents to a .242 team BA which resulted in being ranked 2nd in the Sunbelt in overall pitching.  Southern Miss has always been a quality program and this is a very nice pull for Coach LeCroy and Liberty.   Schedule wise we've started to hear of a few games on the schedule next year.  As it stands now the Flames will open...

Western Kentucky will roll into Lynchburg with a 28-5 record including 6-2 in CUSA and #42 in the RPI which is good for 2nd place in the league.  Liberty comes in at 22-11 overall, 5-4 in CUSA & #51 in the RPI.  WKU is coming off an impressive weekend that saw them take 2/3 on the road against conference favorite Dallas Baptist.  WKU has raced out to an incredible overall record including going 22-0 at home and leading CUSA in team hitting and team ERA.  WKU is led by Ryan Wideman who's hitting an eye popping .452 with 6 HR's 40 RBI's and 27 stolen bases.  Wideman is 1 of a league high 7 Hilltoppers hitting over .300.  As a team they are hitting .323 with 34 homers.  It won't get any easier for the Flames on the mound as WKU has a team ERA of 2.67.  Liberty is 2nd in ERA in the league but over 1.5 runs higher at 4.29.  As you may have guessed the only reason the Hilltoppers aren't in the top 20 of the RBI is a relatively light schedule th...

Everyone was left with a sour taste in their mouth following the weekend series down in Jacksonville Alabama that saw Liberty lose the final 2 games after winning the opener.  The controversy of course centered around Ben Blair being accidentally left off the active roster for the weekend.  JSU likely became aware of it Friday and researched the issue and waited until Blair had thrown his first pitch of the game to bring up the discrepancy which led to Liberty forfeiting the game.  My tweet reporting on the forfeit now has 111k interactions as of 03/31/25 which is an insane number and by far the most viewed tweet I've ever had.  Opinions varied on the topic throughout the last several days.  The bottom line is JSU had every right to make that decision, and it was probably the right call to make.  However, nobody will ever feel good about winning that way and Liberty has to be sick to their stomach looking back on it.  You could make the argument that i...

  Record:  11-5          Team ERA: 3.96 Home: 7-2               Team BA: .258 Road: 4-3                Team Fielding %: .974 RPI: 99                    Team OPS: .791 Quad 1: 2-5 Quad 2: 1-0 Quad 3: 2-0 Quad 4: 6-0 CUSA Rank: 105h Average RPI .5097 SOS: 172 We're just under 1 month into the 2025 season and Liberty sits at 11-5 with 1 more road Midweek game at #10 Clemson before a weekend series home with Princeton.  Things really could not have gone much better realistically other than winning 1 more game against Xavier which would have won that series.  Liberty hangs tough and has frequently come back from early deficits.  Ben Blair has looked every bit the part of the ace that Liberty needed him to be.  Mathieson has pitched very well and has solidified himself as a starter for the Flames.  Overall...

The Bradley LeCroy era will kick off with a 3-game set in Lynchburg against St Johns.  Naturally, a potential snow event of 3-6 inches is projected on Tuesday so hopefully the games aren't impacted.  The Flames do of course have turf which will certainly help efforts, although the weekend forecast currently shows rain on Saturday and Sunday as well.  For the first time in a bit the Flames are picked 5th of 10 teams in CUSA and have just 1 pre-season All Conference team rep in SP Ben Blair.  That shouldn't be a surprise given the turnover the program faced after the coaching change which was fairly late in the process.  We were able to see the revamped LeCroy Flames 3 times in the Fall against VT, Longwood & a Canadian HS National team.  The Flames smashed VT and showed what the lineup could look like if the Fall carries over into the Spring.  The Flames won't feel the weight of being the favorite this year and can hunt for once.  That being sa...

Opening day is finally here.  The Bradley LeCroy era will begin this week at home against Big East power St Johns for a 3-game set in Lynchburg.  The Red Storm were picked 3rd in the Big East behind UCONN & Xavier, both of whom are ranked in the mid major top 25.  The Red Storm also received 1 first place vote and placed 4 players on the pre-season All Big East team.  They won the Big East last year and boasted a 12-10 road record which is always important for teams for the NE that will play the bulk of the first month on the road.  The Red Storm have long been a power at the Mid Major level under long time HC Ed Blankmeyer before he stepped away in 2020.  18-year assistant Mike Hampton replaced him and has restored the Red Storm to prominence for the first time since 2018 when they won 40 games.  The 2 teams faced off a number of times in the Jim Toman & Scott Jackson eras with the Johnnies leading the all-time series 8-6 including a sweep of ...