For the past three seasons, coach Brad Stromdahl has steadily built the Georgia State baseball program, patiently taking the team from the bottom of the league and into the playoffs. Now, with a solid group of veterans returning and some impactful transfers, the expectations are higher.
“It’s going to be a high, high-impact team we have,” said Stromdahl, whose team opens the season at 3 p.m. Friday, with the first of a four-game home series against Cincinnati. “We have an incredible amount of experience and growth within the last few years of building upon the foundation that we’ve been able to lay since 2020.”
The series continues with a doubleheader at 1 p.m. Saturday and a single game at noon Sunday.
Since Stromdahl took over the program, the Panthers have improved from 9-7 to 18-37 and to 30-27 in 2022, when the team reached the Sun Belt Conference playoffs.
The progress is consistent with Stromdahl’s track record. He was an assistant for five seasons at GSU when the team won the Colonial Athletic Association and began the program at Georgia Gwinnett College, taking that team to the NAIA World Series three times in seven years.
This year the goals at Georgia State are to top last season’s win total, make a run in the conference tournament and contend for a spot in an NCAA Regional. The Panthers were picked to finish ninth in the Sun Belt’s preseason poll.
Three returning players make up the core of this year’s team – Max Ryerson, Cameron Jones and Ryan Watson.
Ryerson, an outfielder, was named third-team All-American by Collegiate Baseball and was named first-team All-Sun Belt in 2022 when he led the conference with a school-record 22 home runs. Ryerson had a monster season, hitting .335 with 62 RBIs, 17 doubles and a .705 slugging percentage.
Jones was a first-team all-conference player for the second time. A left-handed pitcher, he led the team with a 3.00 ERA, going 2-3 with five saves and 37 strikeouts in 36 innings. As an outfielder he hit .374 with five homes, 14 doubles and 31 RBIs. He is one of five finalists for the John Olerud Award given to the nation’s best two-way player.
Watson went 1-4 with a 4.38 ERA and nine saves. As the late-inning reliever, Watson struck out 32 and walked only seven in 39 innings. He is the school’s active leader in wins (13) and saves (12). He has the flexibility to be used as a starter or in the bullpen. Watson will be the starting pitcher for the season opener.
“Those three have continued to build upon what they did last year,” Stromdahl said. “And we’ve added some really good core pieces around them that will be able to play pretty much every day.”
Several key transfers joined the program, most notably infielders Matt Ruiz, who hit .237 in 29 games with South Florida last season, and Michael Maginnis, who transferred from Samford, and right-handed reliever Zach Ottinger, a transfer from West Virginia.
The starters for the remainder of the Cincinnati series will be Camren Landry (2-4, 4.03 ETA) and Joseph Brandon (2-0, 3.32) in Saturday’s doubleheader and Mason Patel (2-3, 3.54) on Sunday.
The Panthers leaned on the long ball last season, hitting 75 in 57 games, but they also struck out 529 times. Stromdahl wants to see more contact and fewer swings-and-misses this spring.
“We will continue to play to our ballpark a little bit,” Stromdahl said. “I think we have added some really good pieces that are able to hit the ball, make more contact. We struck out a lot last year and we’re trying to limit that a little bit as we continue to grow our team and grow into the future of what Georgia State baseball is going to be.”
Georgia State’s schedule features two games at Coolray Field – vs. Georgia on March 21 and vs. Georgia Tech on March 28. The Panthers’ conference schedule got more difficult with the addition of the four tew teams who joined the league, including No. 18 Southern Miss.
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