The Tulane Green Wave baseball team was led by a strong pitching rotation to clinch their opening series victory over Loyola Marymount.
The Tulane Green Wave baseball team had a complete performance in the team’s series victory against the Loyola Marymount Lions to kick off their 2025-26 campaign. It wasn’t perfect, with the Green Wave dropping Saturday’s contest, but their 6-2 win on Sunday that featured 19 strikeouts was a dominant pitching outing, one that is tied for third-most in school history and the most for the school in 54 years, when they set a record-21 strikeouts back in1972.
Pitcher Jack Brafa is 1-0 on the year, and he threw two scoreless innings in relief, earning the victory with six of those strikeouts. Starter Jack Frankel threw five strikeouts in four innings. Sam Larson had six strikeouts in 2.1 innings out of the bullpen, while closer Jude Abbadessa capped things off with a pair of strikeouts in 0.2 innings. Sunday’s performance highlighted how deep this pitching staff is for Tulane, as they sent out nine different pitchers to take the mound over the three-day series. In total, the pitching rotation had 44 strikeouts in the series.
Sunday’s victory also highlighted the hitting depth the Green Wave may have this year as well, with eight different sluggers recording a hit in the game. Tye Wood had a homer and two RBIs plus walked, Hugh Pinkney had a pair of runs plus walked, Jason Wachs had a hit, an RBI and a run scored, Kaikea Harrison had a hit, an RBI, and a walk, Nate Johnson recorded a pitch hit single, and Tanner Chun scored a pair of runs, had a hit, and was hit by a pitch.
Another notable feat on Sunday was Jason Wachs extending his on-base streak to 29 games from last season through all three games to start the season, in addition to a homer. That’s a career high for Wachs.
But overall, the pitching depth shone more than anything, as every pitcher who took the mound showed potential and ability to compete off the bat, which poises the Green Wave to be able to make a deep run at the league tournament. Of course, it’s all just to start off. But it was also impressive given Tulane’s past struggles on the West Coast that head coach Jay Uhlman sought to implement strategies to improve that this season. First impression-wise, that seems to have paid off.
The team will now look to continue that momentum against another California squad as they take on No. 2 UCLA Bruins this Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. CT.