Tulane Baseball Home for Weekend Series against Harvard
The Tulane baseball team (2-2) returns home following the West Coast trip to California in the opening weekend to start the home portion of the 2026 schedule with a three-game set against Harvard (0-0) from Feb. 20-22 on Greer Field at Turchin Stadium. The contests against Harvard will be shown on ESPN+. The Voice of the Green Wave, Corey Gloor, will call the action on the Tulane Sports Network from Learfield on WRBH 88.3 on Friday and Saturday. Paul Boron will fill in on the radio on Sunday.
Pitching Matchups
The Green Wave will start graduate student Trey Cehajic on Friday. The right-hander went 5-2 last year in his second year as a member of the Green Wave. He sported an ERA of 4.89 with 57 strikeouts in 57 innings worked. He started the season opener against Loyola Marymount and went 3.1 innings with five strikeouts.
The Crimson, who are starting their season this weekend, will counter with right-handed pitcher Gio Calasante. Calasante went 2-4 last season with 7.11 ERA along with 36 strikeouts in 31.2 innings thrown while limiting opponents to a .246 batting average against.
Tulane will start lefty Beau Sampson on Saturday. The junior transfer from St. George, Utah played at the University of Oklahoma last season where he appeared in 13 games with a 1-0 record and 10 strikeouts in 10.2 innings pitched out of the bullpen. He started his season strong against the Lions of Loyola Marymount going the first 4.1 innings with nine strikeouts. Both runs he allowed came on one hit. The Lions only hit .188 against Sampson in his outing.
Harvard will send lefty Luca Alagheband to the hill for the second game. The Toronto, Canada native pitched in 18 games in relief with 28 strikeouts in 25.1 innings thrown as a freshman.
On Sunday, the Green Wave will start sophomore right-handed pitcher Jack Frankel. Frankel hails from Plano, Texas and is in his first year with the program. Last season, while at Liberty, he went 4-3 with a 3.40 ERA. He also struck out 32 in 45 innings pitched. He had a strong start in the series finale against LMU to start the season with five strikeouts in four innings while allowing just two hits and one run.
Harvard’s Sunday starter is slated to be righty Vedant Sharma. Sharma, a true freshman from Timnath, Colo., is making his collegiate pitching debut in the game.
Scouting Harvard
Harvard was the Ivy League Tournament Runner-up last season. The program had a 14-28 record and a mark of 9-12 in the Ivy League during the regular season. The Crimson are opening the 2026 season with this three-game series against Tulane. Harvard plays each of the team’s first 20 games on the road. The program is picked to finish fourth in the Ivy League this season. The team’s top returning player is infielder/pitcher Gio Colasante. Colasante hit .314 last season with 10 home runs, 33 RBIs and 88 total bases. The team also returns hitters Tyler Shuman (.291 batting average, 20 RBIs) and Jack Rickheim (.276 batting average, 24 RBIs and 43 hits). Colasante registered 36 strikeouts in 31.2 innings thrown last season and was First Team All-Ivy League. The program also returns Luke Alagheband (28 strikeouts in 25.1 innings thrown) and Ryan Hughes (four saves). Head Coach Bill Decker is in his 14th year at Harvard with a 191-271 record. Overall, he is in his 36th year as collegiate head coach with a career record of 728-528.
Series History
Not much to speak of. Harvard leads the all-time series with Tulane 1-0. The only previous game of the series was a 14-11 victory for the Crimson at the NCAA South II Regional in Baton Rouge in 1998.
Against the Ivy League
The Green Wave are 16-5 all-time against schools in the Ivy League since the first matchup in 1986 against Cornell University. The last time Tulane faced an Ivy League school was in 2024 when the program swept the series from Yale at home. The Green Wave have played against all eight members of the Ivy League with Columbia being the most frequent opponent at six times.
Coming In On A Streak
Jason Wachs, despite seeing his hitting streak snapped at 23 games following the opening game of the season against LMU, has still now reached base safely in 30 consecutive games dating back to the end of last season.
Who’s Hot in the First Four Games
- Kaikea Harrison has started the season with eight hits in his first 19 at bats for a .421 batting average. He has a pair of three-hit performances to his name this year in four games after having two all of last season in 56 games. Harrison also has scored five runs and totaled a pair of doubles.
- Tanner Chun has a pair of doubles in his first three hits this season plus he has driven in four runs.
- Nolan Nawrocki has totaled five hits including three doubles in the first four games in a Green Wave uniform.
- A.J. Groeneveld has begun his Tulane career with four hits including both a double and triple. He is also tied for third on the team in RBIs with three along with Matthias Haas and Tye Wood.
- Jason Wachs leads the club in RBIs with six and is tied for the team lead with three doubles.
- J.D. Rodriguez and Beau Sampson are tied for the team lead with nine strikeouts.
Every out that Jack Brafa recorded in his two innings of relief against LMU was a strikeout.
Tulane Trends
- Dating back to the end of last season, two of last three hits that James Agabedis III has are home runs.
- Tulane is one of only two teams in the American Conference, along with UAB, that has not played a home game yet this season.
- Kaikea Harrison, Tye Wood and Nolan Nawrocki have all registered a hit in each game this season.
-Tulane is 2-0 this year in games that Hugh Pinkney starts behind the plate.
The program is also 2-0 in games that Matthias Haas starts as the designated hitter.
- After leading the American Conference last season with 131 doubles as team, Tulane is again leading the league in two-baggers with 14 in the first four games.
- The program’s pitching is averaging an impressive 12.4 strikeouts per game to place second in the American Conference. Tulane ranked second in the league in strikeouts a year ago with an average of 9.8 per contest.
- Of the 23 new players on the roster this season, 16 have already made their Tulane debuts following the first four games of the season. The only newbies that haven’t appeared in a game yet this season are RHP Max Mazinter, RHP Caden Tarango, OF Cole Berge, OF/3B Matthew Major, RHP Owen Geiss, LHP LuisPablo Navarro, and RHP Aidan Rath.
Notables From UCLA Game
Tulane’s game against No. 2 ranked (Coaches)/No. 1 (D1 Baseball) UCLA was the first time that the program has faced a ranked opponent since squaring off with No. 13 Southern Miss last season...The previous last time that Tulane faced a top 10 ranked opponent was against then No. 6 Oregon State in the Corvallis Regional (5/31/24)...The last time Tulane defeated a top 10 opponent was earlier that season when the program swept then No. 6 ECU at home by scores of 6-5, 7-3 and 10-9 (5/10-12/24).
Portions Courtesy Tulane Athletics
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.