BLOOMINGTON, Ill.- The reigning College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin regular season champion Illinois Wesleyan University baseball team begins its 2026 campaign with a three-game series against Greenville University, Wednesday-Thursday Feb. 18-19. The two will tango in a double-header Wednesday at 1 p.m. followed by a 4 p.m. contest. The lid-lifting series wraps up Thursday with first pitch thrown at 3 p.m.

After being named CCIW Coach of the Year in his first season, head coach Michael Kellar enters year two with assistant coach Josh Laurie by his side. Kellar (28-15), an assistant at IWU for six seasons, guided the Titans to a 28-win season in his first at the helm, the most since the 2013 campaign. 

The Titans return 34 student-athletes and welcome 15 newcomers, made up of 12 freshmen and four transfers. Kellar dipped into the transfer portal to snag a pair of Division I student-athletes in former Illinois State infielder sophomore AJ Weller (Geneseo, Ill.-Geneseo), and sophomore pitcher Luc Lawler (Naperville, Ill.-Benet) via the University of Evansville. Joining Weller and Lawler from the portal is sophomore catcher Joel Strand (Ridgefield, Conn.-Greens Farms) and junior college utility man, junior Eli Kieser (Normal, Ill.-University High School).

Illinois Wesleyan brings back several key pieces from a season ago, including all-conference honorees, junior John Philip Ferraro (Oak Park, Ill.-Oak Park River Forest), to go along with a trio of seniors in Jake Pullam (Palatine, Ill.-Palatine), Jack Flagg (River Forest, Ill.-Oak Park River Forest) and Gage Wolfe (Bloomington, Ill.-Bloomington). 

On the mound, Pullam made 10 starts a year ago pitching to a team-low 2.65 earned run average. He capped off the year with a 7-0 win-loss record with two saves out of the bullpen. Senior Will Davidsmeier's (Virginia, Ill.-Beardstown) arm returns for a final year after contributing a team-high 11 starts and 62.1 innings in 2025. 

Ferraro steps back into the lineup after a .328 batting average and a .958 OPS a season ago. The Oak Park, Ill. native started 34-of-35 games, slugging six home runs and 33 RBI. Hudik returns to center field, and the lineup, after hitting .339 last season. He knocked around 37 hits and scored 29 runs. Another all-conference bat in Flagg will slot into the lineup, as he returns for a final year. Flagg had the third highest average on the team at .346 with four home runs and nine doubles. 

The 104th season of Titan baseball kicks off with the 21st meeting between Greenville and Illinois Wesleyan. IWU begins in Greenville, Ill. for the second time in as many years as it faced Grinnell College before matching up with the Panthers a year ago. The Titans got the better of GU in 2025 winning a 10-4 ball game in late February. Pullam earned the start and went four innings before handing the ball to then-sophomore Caleb Martinez (Wheeling, Ill.-Wheeling) and freshman Cole Benson (Oak Park, Ill.-Oak Park River Forest) for the win. Catcher Tyler Woltman starred at the plate going 4-for-5 and scoring two runs, while Flagg contributed a double and four runs batted in. The two programs first met in 2001 with Greenville winning 4-3 to start the series. The Green and White have dominated the Panthers ever since, winning five in-a-row before dropping a pair and then victorious in the next eight, which spanned over the course of 10 years (2011-2021). Since the series began, IWU has traveled south every year but one (2005). The two have battled at different locations throughout the southern half of the state visiting O'Fallon, Ill., Edwardsville, Ill., and Greenville, Ill. Through four games on the campus of Greenville, Illinois Wesleyan is 3-1 with its lone loss coming in 2023.

The first pitch of the new season is scheduled for 1 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 18. A live stream will be available on the schedule page of iwubaseball.com, to go along with live stats.