The Vols also hold a commitment from Matt Barr, the top junior college pitcher in the country. Edmondson, Barr and Estrada are all eligible for the 2025 MLB Draft. Barr and Edmondson are both major draft risks. Barr ranks in the top 200 of the MLB Pipeline draft prospect rankings while Edmondson is a submarine pitcher with a mid-90s fastball making him attractive to professional baseball.
Tennessee
Star Bowling Green Transfer Garrett Wright Commits To Tennessee Baseball | Rocky Top Insider
Star Bowling Green catcher and outfielder Garrett Wright committed to Tennessee baseball Sunday night, a trusted source told RTI. Wright became the Vols’ fourth commit in their transfer class to date.
Wright is a two-time First Team All-MAC selection and was the MAC Defensive Player of the Year this past season. The Massillon, Ohio native entered the transfer portal Thursday with a “do not contact” tag.
A two-year standout for the Falcons, Wright is a career .396 hitter with 14 home runs, 28 doubles and 76 RBIs. Wright slashed .406/.513/.663 in his sophomore season while posting a 8.7% strikeout rate and 9.1% walk rate. While Wright hit just eight home runs last season, he broke the Bowling Green record with 20 doubles.
Wright is a catcher who can also play in the outfield and will have a chance to earn playing time at both spots next season. Tennessee likely loses starting catcher Cannon Peebles to the MLB Draft next month.
Backup Stone Lawless is very capable after starting 21 games for the Vols in his redshirt freshman season. Lawless hit .288 with five home runs but only totaled two hits in six SEC starts. Freshman Levi Clark most his starting time at designated hitter last season but came to Tennessee as a catcher. He’s also capable of playing first base and left field.
More From RTI: Three Current Vols, Three Tennessee Baseball Commits Projected To Go In First Round Of 2025 MLB Draft
Wright would potentially give Tennessee a solid catching option to pair with Lawless while his versatility would allow him to stay in the lineup even if Lawless is behind the plate.
The All-MAC transfer is Tennessee’s fifth transfer portal commit but is just the first position player Tennessee has added. Most of Tennessee’s focus in the transfer portal has been on the mound. Big South Pitcher of the Year Clay Edmondson, SoCon Pitcher of the Year Brady Frederick, Kennesaw State’s Bo Rhudy and MIT’s Mason Estrada account for the Vols’ four other commitments in the transfer portal to this point.
Rutgers weekend starter Landon Mack began a visit with Tennessee Tuesday night after posting a 6-5 record, 4.03 ERA and 1.22 WHIP in 80.1 innings pitched.
Seton Hall corner outfielder Aiden Robbins began a visit with Tennessee Wednesday night while Cal middle infielder Jarren Advincula began a visit with Tennessee on Thursday. Both were all-conference selections a season ago and are elite contact hitters. JUCO Player of the Year Tyler Myatt is committed to Tennessee as a utility man but is eligible for the MLB Draft.
Tennessee baseball received a commitment from UC Irvine pitcher Ricky Ojeda on June 19.
Ojeda, who is eligible for the MLB draft in July, announced his decision on social media. He visited Tennessee on June 15-16.
The lefthanded Ojeda had a strong 2026 season primarily as a reliever, posting a 3.77 ERA with 62 strikeouts and 20 walks in 62 innings. In 2025, he became the first reliever to be named Big West Pitcher of the Year after going 13-1 with a 3.55 ERA and 83 strikeouts in 66 innings, which also earned him a third-team all-American nod from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and Perfect Game.
Whether Ojeda makes it to Tennessee remains an open question. Perfect Game ranked him as the No. 179 prospect for the draft. That would place him in the sixth round.
Should Ojeda join the staff, however, he would instantly become one of the team’s top options out of a bullpen that struggled immensely in 2026. The pitching staff is also under new leadership under pitching coach Austin Knight, who was hired from ECU.
Ojeda is the fourth player to announce they will transfer to Tennessee this offseason, joining two-way Mercer transfer Braydon Kersey, Northwestern State pitcher Brody Trosclair and Air Force infielder Wyatt Hanoian.
Who’s leaving Tennessee baseball
- UTL Jay Abernathy (Oklahoma)
- RHP Nic Abraham
- INF Ariel Antigua (Arizona)
- INF Finley Bates
- RHP Ari Bethea
- OF Hutson Chance
- RHP Sawyer Deering (San Diego State)
- OF Nate Eisfelder
- 1B Evan Hankins (Virginia Tech)
- UTL Hunter High
- RHP Brayden Krenzel (Arkansas)
- INF Manny Marin
- INF Ethan Moore (Missouri)
- UTL Chris Newstrom
- LHP Taylor Tracey
- C Cash Williams (West Virginia)
Who’s joining Tennessee baseball
- RHP/DH Braydon Kersey
- LHP Brody Trosclair
- INF Wyatt Hanoian
- LHP Ricky Ojeda
Emmett Siegel covers Tennessee baseball for Knox News. Email: emmett.siegel@knoxnews.com; X: @EmmettSiegel_
JACKSON, Tenn. (WBBJ) – An exciting day of sporting clays in West Tennessee is doubling as a major fight against hunger.
Today’s “Shooting Hunger” event took place at the Carroll County Shooting Sports Park in Huntingdon. It’s a partnership between Tennessee Farm Bureau, Tennessee Farmers Co-Op, Farm Credit Mid-America and Rural First.
Since 2015, Shooting Hunger has helped provide more than three million meals to Tennesseans with money going to food banks, backpack programs, and local hunger relief. A $500 scholarship will also go to the top youth shooter in each flight.
“We’re joining together to raise money for school backpacks to feed hungry kids. We do these, we actually do three of these across the state of Tennessee so at the end of the day we take, we take all the money we put it into a pile and when we divide equally amongst all 95 counties across the state of Tennessee,“ said Bryan Wright, executive vice president for the Tennessee Farm Bureau.
Organizers say events like this matter because one in six children in Tennessee struggle with hunger.
Copyright 2026 WBBJ. All rights reserved.
Tennessee director of track and field Duane Ross gauged the hunger of the men’s 4×100-meter relay team to pull off the upset.
“They said, ‘Coach, we’re going to win,’ ” Ross said. “When they bring you that much confidence, you can grab your popcorn and enjoy the meet.”
No popcorn was consumed, but the appetite was there from the start.
Traunard Folson, Davonte Howell, T’Mars McCallum and Elijah Clark finished in a school record time of 37.98 seconds at the NCAA Outdoor Championships on June 12 in Eugene, Oregon. It was the the program’s first national title in the 4×100 since 1983 and the fourth-fastest in NCAA history.
Four other relay teams never crossed the line. Auburn, the two-time defending champion, had run an NCAA-record 37.75 in the semifinal, but had a botched handoff on the last exchange. Arkansas, the reigning SEC champion, also dropped its baton, along with Oregon and Houston.
McCallum said staying clean through a race of chaos starts with a focus on winning, even in practice.
“In the moment we can’t really worry about anything else, just what we can control,” McCallum said on June 18. “We came to practice every time with the idea of, ‘OK, we’ve got to make sure this is fixed, because we know if we run that time, we can win.’ “
It was the final event of McCallum’s college career. It didn’t fully hit until the long flight home to Knoxville.
“I was like, we really did it,” he said. “Now we have a school record, the first team to ever go under 38 seconds here.”
Whether belief had anything to do with what went wrong in those four other lanes isn’t something Tennessee’s runners can answer. It’s exactly what they point to for why theirs didn’t.
Clark, a freshman who ran the anchor leg, said winning was just a matter of starting the race.
“We knew we had it the whole time,” he said. “No matter who did what, what happened, we knew what the outcome would come to.”
Ross said the victory wasn’t a surprise inside the program either.
“I wouldn’t say unsung,” Ross said. “I’ve watched this team all year long, and we were expecting to come out of there with the championship. It was a tight competition down to the last event.”
Tennessee finished third in the men’s team standings with 46 points, its best total since 2002.
Howell, a junior who ran the second leg, said the belief behind the relay team’s confidence was built long before the race.
“Three of the four of us already ran under 10 seconds,” he said. “Last year we all trained together during the summer, all lived together. We already had the bond, and adding the freshman on anchor was just a cherry on top. He figured it out at SECs, ran a 10.1, season’s best, and we trusted him to bring it home.”
Clark said the title is already part of something bigger to him.
“The goal is to always make history,” said Clark, who was hired by Tennessee four years ago after a successful run at North Carolina A&T. “It’s been one of my dreams. To be able to be on the wall, especially at a school like this, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
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