After enduring a very trying 8-32 campaign in Coach Kevin Post's first season at the helm, the 2025 Lakeland University Muskies baseball team is focused on swinging the tide towards being a competitive program.

Lack of pitching, overall depth, and youth continually plagued the Muskies in 2024. "We knew going into Year 0 that this rebuild would be tough, said Post. "Anytime you are trying to establish a winning culture there will be obstacles and resistance."

It all starts with recruiting talented student-athletes and that is exactly what Post and assistant coach Justin Jurek set out to do when they took over late last fall. Those efforts resulted in 20 incoming recruits, with nine of those coming with experience at the junior college level. "We needed to get older and more experienced and talented in a hurry. I feel we addressed that with this class," Post stated.

The cupboard is not completely bare after last year. There is some potential star power in returning seniors Zak Keegan, OakLee Spens, and sophomore Tucker Gegenfurtner. Also back and expected to fill big leadership and production roles are senior Landen Sobieski; juniors Chris Day, Anthony Yust, Dylan Costello, Jacob Wollschlager, Ramiro Hernandez; and sophomores Eli Watkins, Landon Mani, Kaden Kowalewsky, Bryan Mitchell.

"I love these guys!" said Post. "They have completely bought into what we are building and I cannot wait to see them compete and earn success."

Headlining the newcomers are junior college transfers: SS-Caleb Sumsion, RHP-Thor Dunham, RHP-Sutton Shurley, LHP-Ian Scherbring and OF-James Alvarez. Also the freshman class includes: LHP-Mason Holz, RHP-Bryce Backus, RHP-Braeden Schley, C-Logan South, C-Sean Gregorius, RHP/IF-Adrian Mercier, OF-Nick Chiu and RHP/1B-Rily Roberts.

"Our goal for the 2025 season is to be competitive on a daily basis and to be playing meaningful games at the end of the year," said Post. "With the guys we have and the work they put in, we expect to do just that.

"Nothing will be easy and we know we will have to grind for everything we get. We are all ready for the challenge of putting Lakeland baseball back on the map.".

This year's schedule will feature 40 regular season games, the NCAA maximum for the regular season portion of the schedule. The Muskies open up March 2 with a DH at Carroll, followed by 10 games down in Auburndale, Fla. Lakeland then returns to face Carthage in a non-conference matchup before taking on the competitive 24-game Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference schedule. Sprinkled in are non-conference tussles with Beloit and Northland at home in early April.