ORLANDO — UCF‘s baseball team won’t sneak up on anyone this upcoming spring after a surprising 2024 campaign in which the Knights won 37 games and earned an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament.
And that’s the way second-year coach Rich Wallace wants it to be going forward.
“I don’t think the expectations change. We expect to be in the NCAA Tournament,” Wallace said last week. “Everything we do, it’s set up for that. Anything less than that, the guys will feel like they didn’t do what we are supposed to do.
“It’s more about, from this point on, getting better and finding a way to compete for a Big 12 title, and then to let the chips fall where they may.”
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The Knights were picked to finish seventh in the Big 12 preseason media poll, unveiled on Jan. 23. Four other Big 12 teams joined UCF in last year’s tournament; Oklahoma State and Arizona hosted regionals, while both West Virginia and Kansas State made unexpected runs to super regionals as 3-seeds.
Here are five things to know about UCF’s 2025 baseball team ahead of Friday night’s opener against Siena.
UCF pitching staff bookended by Dom’s: Stagliano, Castellano
UCF’s two Preseason All-Big 12 selections are expected to bookend its pitching staff — right-handed starter Dom Stagliano and left-handed reliever Dominic Castellano.
Stagliano made 14 starts for the Knights in 2024, second-most on the team, and he went 3-4 with a 4.10 ERA and 66 strikeouts in 74⅔ innings. He ranked top-30 nationally in both WHIP (1.02) and hits allowed per nine innings (6.51).
“I think we’re trying to find a way to debunk the system on what hitters are expecting from me and what I’m throwing,” Stagliano said. “Working on new sequencing, stuff like that. No new pitches this season.”
Castellano, on the other end, thrived as UCF’s high-leverage stopper, posting a 7-0 record with a 2.83 ERA and 68 strikeouts. Nine of Castellano’s 22 appearances lasted at least three innings, and he notched three saves.
In his final outing of 2024, Castellano tossed a pair of scoreless frames as UCF eliminated Stetson from the Tallahassee Regional.
UCF’s outfield is loaded, including transfers from FSU, Duke
UCF’s outfield looks like a big strength on paper — a four-player rotation for Wallace to utilize based on matchups.
Matt Prevesk started 57 games and posted a team-leading .342 batting average with 18 extra-base hits, 35 RBIs and 42 runs scored. The senior, an Apopka native, registered 25 multi-hit performances, finishing a home run shy of a cycle in a non-conference game against Jacksonville last March.
Prevesk wants to complete more sweeps in 2025; UCF only accomplished that feat twice in multi-game series despite last year’s successes: Samford (Feb. 23-25) and Houston (May 3-4).
“Even when we were up, there were games where we kind of stepped off the gas and gave it to (our opponents),” Prevesk said. “I think this team has the ability to keep the foot on the gas and keep going.”
Andrew Williamson impressed as a freshman, drawing into the lineup 50 times and slashing .258/.333/.411 with 12 extra-base hits, 25 RBIs and 28 runs scored. He had a two-home run game against Oklahoma State and belted a three-run shot in a midweek road win over Florida.
After the season, Williamson rewrote the Cal Ripken Sr. Collegiate Baseball League record books in batting average (.462), slugging (.906) and OPS (1.452).
“I don’t know what the ceiling is,” Wallace said. “You can put All-American or anything you want on Andrew Williamson. Could he achieve it? I think so, at some point.”
Wallace is excited about a pair of transfers that could become fixtures at the top of the order: junior DeAmez Ross (Florida State) and sophomore Chase Krewson (Duke).
Ross reunites with Wallace, a former FSU assistant, and provides a top-of-the-lineup speed threat with solid bat-to-ball skills. Two seasons ago, he finished on a 12-game hitting streak and posted a .287 average for the Seminoles.
Krewson made 35 starts for Duke last spring as a freshman, hitting .331 with five homers, 35 runs scored and 22 RBIs in 130 at-bats. He flashed defensively as well, throwing out runners at home during both the ACC Tournament and the Norman (Oklahoma) Regional.
Andrew Sundean is ‘full go,’ expected to share catching duties
One of UCF’s top power hitters, Andrew Sundean is declared “full go” ahead of the campaign. He missed a month in 2024 due to a knee injury, but returned in time for the stretch run and contributed a go-ahead RBI single against Alabama and a home run versus Florida State in the Tallahassee Regional.
Sundean, an All-American Athletic Conference first-team selection in 2023, logged two-thirds of his starts as a designated hitter. He drew 11 appearances behind the plate — a plan that will continue going forward given the emergence of redshirt junior Dylan King.
“He’s as physical as he’s ever been, first of all,” Wallace said. “He’s up to about 240 pounds with that thought of, ‘How am I going to make it through the year if I don’t do what I’m supposed to in the weight room?’ He attacked that. We’re just trying to be careful with him, how much we use him. There might be some days where I just have to give him a whole off day because, at some point at the end of the year, we’re going to have to ride him, whether DHing or catching.”
Sundean, a Lakeland native, has a lifetime slash line of .325/.410/.565 with 27 home runs across three seasons at UCF.
Wiley Hartley, Grant Siegel round out opening weekend rotation
Wallace estimated that five or six pitchers have been stretched out to log starters’ innings, anchored by Stagliano and Wiley Hartley (10 GS, 3-3, 5.31 ERA, 38 Ks, 15 BBs in 39 IP last year). They will take the ball Friday and Saturday against Siena, and redshirt junior Grant Siegel will get the first crack at the Sunday spot in the rotation.
Siegel sat out the 2024 season due to NCAA transfer rules, playing one year apiece at Tulane and West Virginia. Eighteen of his 30 career appearances have been starts, pitching to a 4.12 ERA with 83 Ks in 102⅔ innings.
Right-handed sophomores Camden Wicker and Matt Sauser, both added from the transfer portal, are waiting in the wings and in position to pick up midweek starts.
Sauser fanned nine batters in 10 innings at Florida State last year, registering a 6.97 ERA. Wicker, a Viera native, made 10 starts for Wofford and helped the Terriers win the Southern Conference with a 4-3 record, a 4.28 ERA and two saves.
“You’d love to just say, ‘This guy’s starting Friday, this guy’s Saturday, this guy’s Sunday,’ but early in the year, with the pitch counts the way they are, it’s really hard to do that,” Wallace said. “You’re really trying to piggyback a couple, and that helped us last year.”
Wallace said UCF experimented with moving Castellano into the rotation in the fall and early in the spring, though he will keep the southpaw in a high-leverage role to begin the season. Similarly, Kris Sosnowski has starter potential but will be a key arm in the bullpen out of the gate.
Schedule features UF, Miami home dates, 7-game May road trip
Midweek, non-conference matchups with Missouri, Florida and Miami highlight the home schedule, as does as a three-game series with No. 23 TCU from April 17-19. The Knights will not face any of the Big 12’s four newcomers from the Pac-12: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah.
UCF has won each of the last five head-to-head meetings with the Gators. Florida will make its first trip to Orlando since 2018.
“(Gators coach Kevin O’Sullivan) was all for it. He was excited for it, just like I was,” Wallace said. “It works out for them as a closer midweek for them than probably anybody in the state that they can get to.”
UCF will renew its War on I-4 rivalry with South Florida to kick off the month of March, a three-game weekend series in Tampa.
Perhaps the most difficult stretch of the Knights’ schedule will be a nine-day, seven-game road trip through the Midwest in May. UCF visits preseason Big 12 favorite Oklahoma State for a weekend series, followed by a date with Missouri State and a three-game set at Texas Tech.
