JACKSON, Tenn. – “The cool part about it is that the talking about it is about to be over and the work and preparation is going to be tested here in just a couple of days,” said Union University baseball head coach Casey McGehee ahead of his team’s first series of the 2025 season.
“I’m really excited about this group of guys,” said McGehee, an MLB veteran who enters his third season at the program’s helm. “I think that our success is going to be largely tied to how unselfish we can be, if we can put the team before ourselves and hold our teammates and ourselves accountable to paying attention to details and be willing to sacrifice some of our own personal opportunities or accolades with the understanding that we have so many guys that are capable of getting the job done.”
The Bulldogs will begin their season with a non-conference three-game series at Limestone University this Friday and Saturday. Next weekend, they’ll be at UVA-Wise for four games before returning home to take on Valdosta State in the first of 11 GSC series, six of which will be in Jackson. Union will also face Lane, Freed-Hardeman, Harding, UT-Martin, Arkansas Tech, and Young Harris in midweek action. All told, Union has 25 home games on the schedule.
Union’s 38-man roster comprises 27 returners, six freshmen, and five transfers. On the makeup of his 2025 squad, McGehee said, “We have a really nice mix of guys that are returning that have had success in this conference with guys such as Eli Snelson and Grant Ross being in their third year, knowing what’s in front of them, but mixing that in with some junior college transfers–Caleb Davis and Eli Jackson–along with a couple of freshmen that I expect to be major contributors. Carter Daniel is one that stands out as one that I’m really excited about.”
Ross finished the 2024 season with a GSC-seventh 1.144 OPS and 12 home runs. Snelson pitched 69.0 innings over 12 starts for Union last season. Other returning contribution includes senior Carson Chavies, who had a team-third .846 OPS last season, junior pitcher Noah Toney, and 2024 Freshman of the Year Elijah Ramsey. Freshman Carter Daniel is a right-handed pitcher from Killen, Alabama; junior Caleb Davis, an infielder, comes to Union from Northwest-Shoals Community College, while Eli Jackson is a lefty from Wallace State CC.
The thing I’m most excited about,” said McGehee, “is some of our returners have made great strides and improvements on the things that we identified after last season.”
McGehee is joined by second-year assistant Daniel Jones, graduate assistant Sam Poindexter, and volunteer assistant Ronnie Giddens.
“There’s nothing better than going into a season with a group of guys that you really feel is pulling in the same direction. I think we’ll play a very exciting brand of baseball–very aggressive, trying to attack the strike zone as a pitching staff–and at the end of the year, I really think this is going to be a group that Union University and our community will look at and be proud of.”
