OXFORD, Miss. – The Samford Baseball team traveled to Ole Miss over the weekend to compete in one of two fall games against outside competition.
 
The Bulldogs will also take on LSU in two weeks. The 2025 Samford team features a lot of new faces and a lack of Division I experience, and head coach Tony David feels these scrimmages have more value this fall,
 
"There is no way to measure how important these games are with this type of team," David said. "I love this group, our talent and the makeup of the team. But any way you look at it we just don't have much experience on game day at this level with an almost restart. I believe we were a completely different team at the end of the day then we were to start it."
 
The two teams battled on the field for 16 innings. Coach David used the day to get every healthy position player a taste of game-day baseball as well as 14 different pitchers.
 
Returner Miller Riggins, who finished last season as one of the team's top starting pitchers, started things off with two good innings of work. Auburn transfer Cameron Keshock was the only other pitcher for Samford to go more than an inning, also throwing two outstanding innings to start the second half of the day. The other 12 arms went one inning a piece.
 
"The main story of the day was how well I thought we pitched with so many arms running out there," David said. "Miller was arguably our best arm the last few weeks of last year and has picked right up where he left off. Keshock has been outstanding for us and just improves a little every time he goes out there. (JC Transfer) Joseph Lee, (USM Transfer) Mason Blasche and (Birmingham Southern transfer) Josh Leersen were outstanding again today along with several others."
 
Position player wise the Bulldogs ran out a lot of new guys for their first action with a few returners mixed in from last year. Three sophomores represent the returners with experience with first baseman Jackson Harris as the only returning everyday starter along with Cade Carr and Angelo Prieto who got a lot of at bats were all in the starting lineup. Freshman Gus Gandy had a good day for Samford on the field.
 
"Gus has had a good fall," David said. "He was one that we really wanted to see in this competition. He made several high-level plays and put together good at bats. Jake Souders started hitting on day one of the fall and hasn't stopped. He drilled a double and handled himself well in the outfield."
 
Parker McDonald had an RBI double, Cullen Horowicz set up a run with a double off the wall and freshman Brooks McKenna drove in a run with a single to right as the Bulldogs faced a lot of really good SEC arms.
 
"There are a lot easier tasks than to get your first taste of baseball at this level and have it be against those arms," David said. "I felt like we were a completely different team the last 13 innings than we were the first three. We had a number of guys come of age a little bit. We saw a lot of mid upper 90's arms against an opponent and competed well the last part of the day. We are better for it."
 
The team will go back to the practice field for a couple of weeks before traveling to Biloxi, Miss., to face LSU in the final fall game of the season on November 3.
 
"We still have a tremendous amount of work to do as a team between now and February," David said. "But all the fungos and BP in the world can't replace the experience of today. We want to win championships and compete at the highest level of postseason. Days like today help in that development process."
 
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