MONTEVALLO, Ala. – The University of Montevallo baseball team is ready for the 2025 Gulf South Conference Championship which will start on Friday, May 2.
The Falcons completed the regular season with a 25-23 record including 16-17 inside GSC play. They earned the eighth seed in the tournament and will take on the top seed and regular season champion, Delta State, in the first round.
Game Notes vs. Delta State
How To Follow
#8 Montevallo vs. #1 Delta State / May 2 at 7:00 p.m. CT
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Bracket:
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About Montevallo
The Falcons will embark on another postseason run as they will play in the nightcap on Friday, May 2. The team shines the brightest on the biggest stage as they have 16 wins against teams over .500 including three wins against top-25 teams. They head back to the conference tournament where they went 2-2 a season ago. Against the top four seeds in the GSC tournament, Montevallo is 8-4, however, against the five, six and seven seeds, the Falcons are 2-7 this season.
Jacob Pearl was named GSC Freshman of the Week for the third time this season. For the week, Pearl had three hits, five runs scored and five walks drawn. For the season, Pearl is batting .310 with 36 hits, 37 runs scored, eight doubles, three homers and 18 runs driven in. Pearl has done an excellent job of finding ways on as he has totaled 19 walks and 12 hit by pitches.
Ian Cartwright had a career game in the series finale against AUM to help the Falcons clinch their way into the postseason. Cartwright went 4-for4 with three singles, a double, four RBI, a run scored and a stolen base. Cartwright's four hits and RBI are career-high's for the freshman.
The Falcon order will be tough to navigate with
McGwire Turner,
Connor Crowson and
Evan Radford sitting in the 2-3-4 spots behind Pearl at leadoff. All three batters are hitting over .350, have an OPS of over 1.000 and have over 100 total bases. Turner leads the Falcons with a .412 batting average, 77 hits and an on base percentage of .491. In 48 games, Turner has been held without a hit only three times. He leads UM with 23 multi-hit games. Crowson has the most home runs on the team with 16. Additionally, he leads the club with 59 RBI, 133 total bases and a slugging percentage of .675. Radford comes into the postseason with 66 hits, 14 doubles, 12 homers and 44 RBI. All three have 20 or more multi-hit games and 10 or more multi-RBI games.
Taking the mound in game one,
Adiel Melendez leads the GSC and is 18th in all of Division II with 85 strikeouts. He has the third lowest ERA (2.22), the 2nd most wins (8), 2nd most innings pitched (85) and the 2nd lowest batting average against (2.38). Melendez has seven starts where he has gone seven or more innings and 11 starts where he's struck out five or more batters. At the GSC tournament last season, Melendez picked up the win against West Georgia where he pitched seven innings, struck out eight batters and only allowed six hits and one earned run.
Scouting Delta State
The Statesmen earned the top seed in the 2025 GSC Tournament with a 32-16 record including 23-10 in conference play. Delta State has only lost three series this season including against Montevallo. DSU's impressive season included five sweeps coming against GSC opponents.
Brett Burrell finished his 2025 season with a .398 batting average, a 1.146 OPS, 66 hits and 49 RBI. Burrell and Dylan Coleman both had 10 or more homers, over 40 RBI and over 100 total bases. Burrell had 11 games this season where he had three hits while Coleman had the teams longest hitting streak of the season at 18 consecutive games. Burrell had an on base streak of 35 games that was snapped on Apr. 11 by Trevecca Nazarene.
In the series against the Falcons, Brendan McCauley notched seven hits in the series including a 5-for-5 performance with a two-run homer and four singles. McCauley knocked in four RBI in the series. Tristan Hickman had two multi-hit games against UM. Hickman drove in three RBI and hit a solo shot in game two.
Drake Fontenot had a regular season to remember in 2025 as he leads the GSC in: ERA (1.96), wins (9), innings pitched (91.2) and batting average against (.208). Fontenot has limited extra base hits as he's only allowed 16 out of 69 hits this season. He had two games this season with 11 strikeouts and has six scoreless starts including a nine inning, complete game against West Alabama. Fontenot is 7th in Division II with a 0.96 WHIP.
