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ATHENS, Ohio — The Ohio baseball team is back for the 2024 season with a new outlook. Ohio is returning a lot of old faces, but also has several newcomers. Ohio added eight transfers and nine freshman to the pack this offseason. 

The Bobcats' roster features returners redshirt junior Nick Dolan, redshirt junior AJ Rausch and fifth year Alex Finney, among others. Last season, Dolan had the second-most doubles on the team with 14 and Finney had the most RBIs of anyone currently rostered with 24. Rausch scored the most runs last season as he crossed home plate 40 times. 

"I think everyone's kind of on the edge of their seat trying to get back into things but I think we got a really solid group of guys, a really good core," Finney said. 

Ohio also has a few returners on the mound, with redshirt senior Jacob Tate, junior Dillon Masters and senior Luke Olson making their returns. Olson threw the most innings for Ohio last season, totaling 60 and one-third innings, and Tate had the best ERA at 4.08 over 53 innings. 

"Since day one, they've been all in and they've bought into everything each coaching staff member has has brought to him and they've kind of melded melded really well, so that was really good to see," Finney said. "Sometimes, coming from different programs and coaches, it's not always the easiest thing, but they've taken it and ran with it." 

Tate has also seen the same out of his fellow pitchers. A little over half of Ohio's editions for the new season are pitchers. 

"So far this winter, I think we've proved a lot in terms of like competing against our hitters, and we have a lot of new guys from last year. A lot of new guys that only help us a lot and the guys that also came back will also be a big part of pitching this year," Tate said.  

Although Ohio might look different than last season, it feels confident after the fall and start of the spring. It's excited to kick off its nonconference schedule with two 2023 NCAA Regional qualifiers, Lipscomb and Campbell. Ohio has not previously played Lipscomb and it last played Campbell in 2005.

Other nonconference opponents on Ohio's schedule are UIC, Youngstown State, Northern Kentucky, Dayton and Virginia Tech, most of whom Ohio will face during its MAC schedule. Ohio will also see familiar opponents Marshall and Morehead State. Last season, Ohio lost its series to Morehead State but split with Marshall. 

"I think we ranked 38th in the country in strength of schedule. I think this year is going to be right around the same," head coach Craig Moore said. "Those non conference games obviously get us ready for your conference games. I feel like we have to compete with Lipscomb we have to compete with Campbell because those are the teams that we need to beat within our conference in terms of comparisons. That's what it's all about. It's about what you do in conference because that's how you get an opportunity to get to postseason, by winning a conference tournament."

Ohio will kick off MAC play on March 8 with a weekend series against Northern Illinois. Next weekend, it will take on Kent State the weekend of March 15 before heading up to see Central Michigan the weekend of March 22. 

Regardless of who the Bobcats are playing, they know that there's going to be strong competition.  

The Bobcats will be home the first and last week of April with both MAC and nonconference opponents slated. They will also end their regular season schedule with a home series in May before the MAC Tournament. 

"There's a lot of parity. It seem that, probably within the last two to three years, just from top to bottom, there are no weekends where you're like 'yeah, this is our weekend.' It's just not like that," Moore said. "I'm looking forward to Kent State and Miami. Those two programs, obviously Miami's our traditional rival was the university, so that's a big weekend. We took two of three from them last year at home. Kent State, we went up there last year and they swept us, so we owe them. That'll be a very big weekend when they come down here  to Athens to play/ Central Michigan's had our number; Ball States had our number, so those kind of are the teams that are looking forward to play. We're looking forward to everybody."

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