Tulane Baseball Opens Season Tonight at Loyola Marymount
The Tulane baseball team starts the 2026 season on the road in Los Angeles as the program takes on Loyola Marymount at Page Stadium tonight through Sunday.
The two teams start at 8 p.m. CST tonight, before an early evening first pitch on Saturday, Feb. 14, at 5 p.m. CST and a mid-afternoon start on Sunday, Feb. 15, at 3 p.m. CST. Kevin Wyart will call all the action on the Tulane Sports Network from Learfield on 88.3 WRBH/Varsity Network. The LMU series will also be streamed on ESPN+.
"Super excited," senior infielder Kaikea Harrison told us leading up to today. "I think we're going to learn about our identity right away. If we get off to a good start, we'll learn a lot about ourselves. I think we've got a good group. Everyone loves each other, very competitive. Pitchers are starting to mesh well."
Weekend 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.
The Lions will counter with sophomore righty, Zach Bender, on Friday. The Las Vegas, Nevada native went 1-1 last season with a 3.99 ERA in 29.1 innings. He posted 26 strikeouts, while limiting opponents to a .248 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.
LMU will send Jonah Johnson to the hill for the second game. The Colorado Springs, Colorado native went 5-2 last season with a 5.14 ERA in 35 innings worked. He also struck out 42 and limited opponents to a .221 batting average against.
On Sunday, the Green Wave will start sophomore right-handed pitcher Jake 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.
LMU’s Sunday starter is slated to be righty Avery Laine. Laine is another returning pitcher for Loyola Marymount. He went 5-1 last season with a 4.81 ERA plus 58 strikeouts in 67.1 innings pitched.
Scouting Loyola Marymount
The Lions went 29-29 last season under the direction of Donegal Fergus. Fergus is beginning his third year in charge of the program and sports a combined record of 53-59. The team’s top returning hitter is senior Zion Williams. Williams hit .310 in 2025 with 35 runs, 57 hits, 13 doubles, six home runs, 39 RBIs, 88 total bases and 21 stolen bases. The team’s top returning pitcher is junior Cole Stuckey. Stuckey won a pair of games with 2.18 ERA plus 23 strikeouts in 20.2 innings pitched with three saves.
Series History
Tulane leads the all-time series with Loyola Marymount by a 4-2 count after taking two of the three games last season in New Orleans from Feb. 21-22. This will be the first time that Tulane has faced the Lions in Los Angeles as the previous six games have all been played in New Orleans beginning with the 2007 start of the series.
Against the West Coast Conference
Tulane is 24-24 all-time against current schools from the West Coast Conference. The program’s first contest against a current WCC team came in 1978 against Santa Clara. The team’s last meeting with a WCC team was against Pepperdine last season from February 28-March 2. Tulane lost a pair of one-run games to start the series before securing a 7-4 victory in the final game.
Coming In On A Streak
Sophomore outfielder Jason Wachs ended the 2025 season on a 23-game hitting streak and having reached base safely in each of the last 26 games of the season. In Wachs’ 23-game hitting streak, he is hitting .379 (33-for-87) with 22 runs, 23 hits, 11 doubles, a triple, two home runs and 16 RBIs.
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.