2025 Baseball Preview Series: Relievers

The Privateer preview series concludes with a look at a pitching staff that is not only deep in numbers, but is full of guys who can provide different looks to opposing hitters this season as it starts in two days against West Georgia.
 
The closer's role has several candidates that have stood out to Coach Dax Norris. Bryce Calloway, who had two wins and two saves last year is a senior who will be slotted into some high leverage innings. Ira Austin, a transfer from Nunez CC, had a lot of experience in his previous stop and had five saves along with three wins.
 
Skylar Jones, who redshirted last season, can light up the radar gun, and in his last full season, was mostly a starter at Snead State where he won four games in 10 starts (14 appearances). Sawyer Toney, who was also mentioned in the starter's preview, is a transfer from Southern Miss who was a Perfect Game All-American in high school.
 
"You start with Calloway and Austin. They've thrown the ball well. Jones has Major League stuff out there but he hasn't pitched in a year and a half. With him it's a matter of more reps. Toney also has swing and miss stuff that can translate to the back end of the pen. The guys that we have, I feel like we can use multiple guys in that role and keep them fresh."
 
Trey Usey, Canaan Clayton and Cade Mitchell also offer previous experience with the program and can execute in a variety of roles. Usey has started and has also been used as an innings eater out of the pen. Clayton, coming off an injury that shut down his 2024 season, pitched to a 3.86 ERA in his freshman year. Mitchell was only able to pitch in four games last year, but is a lefty who was an All-Region selection at the junior college level.
 
"I like the way we've thrown more first pitch strikes and I was just telling our staff that iron sharpens iron. It's made our staff better going against such a strong offensive team like we have."
 
When talking in depth about the different looks this team can offer, Coach Norris also mentioned Lucas Rodriguez, Aiden Torrez and Tyler Velino. Rodriguez is a top 1000 rated recruit and had a 0.91 ERA in his senior season at Miami Christian. Torrez is a two-way player who racked up nine wins and 10 saves. Velino, who was with the Privateers last season, made five appearances at UNO after transferring from Delgado where he had three wins and two saves.
 
"We have different looks in our bullpen. For the first couple of years we had a lot of good ones but it was more of the same guys and we didn't have as much of a chance to change the look for a hitter."
 
The Privateers also have Brooks Byers returning who had a huge series against College World Series participant, Florida State. Byers struck out five batters that weekend. Added to the mix are Myles Green, Cole Syversen, Gus Rogers and Carson Kimball.
 
Green finished in the top five in Southwest Mississippi history in saves. Syversen pitched six innings against national champion, LSU-Eunice in his longest outing last season. Rogers was a highly rated recruit out of the state of Oregon (third among left-handed pitchers) and he initially signed with the University of Oregon out of high school. Kimball will be back on the mound for the first time in over a year after redshirting at Texas State last season.
 
"The biggest thing is these guys can execute in different roles and ultimately they're about whatever helps the team. I definitely like the matchups we can create with the amount of arms and different styles we have in our bullpen."
 
The weekend preview for the first series will be out on Thursday ahead of the season opener against West Georgia.
 
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