College baseball season is right around the corner, and the Mountaineers are set to return to Beaver Field at Jim and Bettie Smith Stadium in late February with a new-look lineup and aspirations of a deep postseason run.
App State finished the 2025 campaign with a 23-31 overall record and an early exit in the Sun Belt Tournament. The Mountaineers lost to Texas State University in a play-in game after finishing 10th in the regular season standings with a 13-17 conference record.
Kermit Smith returns for his 10th season as head coach, making him the second head coach to lead the Mountaineers for at least a decade, and is the first to do so since Jim Morris, who served as the head coach for 25 years from 1974-1998. Smith is three wins away from reaching 200 career wins as the Mountaineers’ head coach, and 31 away from 700 career wins.
“I think anybody that’s been around me knows how much it means for me to put that uniform on,” Smith said in an October press conference after the Mountaineers played exhibition games against North Carolina A&T State University and East Carolina University. “It means a ton. The Black & Gold is a really, really special place to me.”
There are several changes to Smith’s coaching staff. Heath Blackmon is the new pitching coach after the departure of Jim Leggett, and Ross Steedley left the Mountaineers to join the Chicago White Sox as a catching coordinator. Additionally, Seth McLemore returns to Boone as an assistant coach after being a part of the staff from 2023-24.
The offseason brought a lot of changes to the roster, and The Mountaineers will have plenty of returning veteran players paired with talented newcomers.
Junior first baseman Kameron Miller and graduate student infielder Joseph Zamora are two of the big names back in the lineup for another season in the Black & Gold. Miller crushed 12 home runs last season and had a .461 on-base percentage in 47 games, while Zamora racked up 63 hits and recorded a .307 batting average in 52 games played. 2 scoreless innings against North Carolina A&T in the fall.
The pitching staff returned 11 players from last season, including graduate student right-handed pitcher Caleb Marks, senior right-hander Everette Harris, senior left-handed Jake Beaty and redshirt senior right-handed pitcher Jordan Fisher. Marks was limited to 6 starts last season due to injury but struck out 23 batters. Harris appeared in 14 games in 2025, 12 of them as the starting pitcher. Beaty and Fisher both pitched in over 20 games last year and were key pieces of the bullpen.
App State was very active in the transfer portal and is bringing a ton of new talent to the High Country. A few of the major transfer additions include graduate student infielder Steven Smith from Emory & Henry University, senior outfielder Tank Yaghoubi from Elon University, junior left-handed pitcher Tanner Nolan from Crowder College and junior right-handed pitcher Gage Peterson from Walters State Community College.
Smith hit 12 home runs and 22 doubles last season for the Wasps, and in one of the two exhibition games against East Carolina, went 4-4 and pitched a scoreless inning on the mound. Yaghoubi batted .321 in 56 games for Elon last year. Nolan recorded a 2.09 ERA in 51.2 innings and tossed 3 complete games last season. Peterson won 10 of his 13 starts for the Senators in 2025 and tossed 2 scoreless innings against North Carolina A&T in the fall.
The Mountaineers also added two freshmen in the offseason in outfielder Nico Soul and right-handed pitcher Grant Gardner. Soul was ranked as the No. 3 outfield prospect and No. 12 overall prospect in North Carolina in the 2025 class by Perfect Game, and blasted 2 home runs against East Carolina in the fall. Gardner recorded a 0.86 ERA and struck out 112 batters in 56.2 innings in his senior year at Covenant Day School.
App State’s 2026 schedule features 53 games and several marquee matchups. The Mountaineers will visit Duke University Feb. 17, host no. 21 Wake Forest University March 3 and visit the Demon Deacons April 28. Other non-conference games include home-and-home series against UNC-Asheville and Western Carolina University, as well as a 3-game series at Gardner-Webb University. Sun Belt play will start with a huge series at home March 13-15 against the defending conference champions and College World Series runners-up in no. 6 Coastal Carolina University. The Mountaineers will face every school that finished in the top 6 of the 2025 Sun Belt standings, including a road series against no. 20 Southern Mississippi University, March 27-29. App State will wrap the regular season in Atlanta, Georgia against Georgia State University, May 14-16.
Fans can mark their calendars for Feb. 13 at 3 p.m. when App State hosts Canisius University at LP Frans Stadium in Hickory, North Carolina to get the season into full swing.
