MOBILE, Ala. – The University of South Alabama baseball team returns four starters on the infield, including catcher, for the 2022 season.

NOTES
- The Jaguar defense ranked 15th nationally in fielding percentage (.980) last season, while backing a South Alabama pitching staff that also ranked 15th in the country in ERA (3.63) and shutouts (6).
- Positionally, starters from last season who return on the infield are Santi Montiel (shortstop), Hunter Stokes (second base), Reid Powers (catcher) and Cameron Tissue (third base).
- Montiel has started 132 consecutive games at South Alabama. He fielded .976 with five errors in 211 chances in 2021. In Sun Belt Conference games last year, Montiel recorded a .988 fielding percentage with just one error in 88 total chances.
- Tissue appeared in all 58 games with 51 starts last season, and closed the year with a 10-game on-base streak. 
- Stokes started all 58 games in 2021, and committed just one error in 99 total chances in 24 SBC contests.
- Stokes closed the 2021 season with an eight-game on-base streak.
- Joe Sutton was a 2021 Georgia Collegiate Athletic Association first-team all-region, first-team all-conference and NJCAA Region XVII all-tournament team selection at Georgia Highlands CC.
- Erick Orbeta was first-team all-state in Region 8 by the Florida College System Activities Association Athletics as a sophomore last season at Miami-Dade CC, and helped the Sharks capture the 2021 FCSAA State/NJCAA Region 8 South Atlantic District championship to advance to the NJCAA National Tournament in Grand Junction, Colo. He was also named to the FCSAA all-tournament team in 2021.
- Montiel was named to 2021 SBC Championship All-Tournament Team and NCAA Gainesville All-Regional Team. He hit safely in 14 of his final 17 games of the year in 2021, and recorded nine multi-hit games in that span.
- Logan Malone and DJ Law each redshirted the 2021 season.
- Logan Jordan joined the program after transferring from Mississippi State, where he played from 2019-21. 
- Kasey Donaldson was named first-team all-Mississippi Association of Community Colleges Conference (MACCC) honors last season as a redshirt freshman at Pearl River (Miss.) CC.

QUOTES
Head Coach Mark Calvi
- On the versatility in the infield:
"There are guys who can play multiple positions; (Brandon) Auerbach plays third, second and shortstop, Noah Bailey is second and third base, (Cameron) Tissue is shortstop, third, second and could go to first, Landon Jordan can play all three positions as well and also be a really good first baseman, and Hunter Stokes has a career .970 fielding percentage here. He played a little first base in 2017, and we moved him over to first with (Kaleb) DeLaTorre gone. We won't play anyone with a better first baseman than him. He still plays over at second base, because there are some combinations and situations that will dictate that at times throughout the season. 

"We have several guys in the infield who can move around and play multiple positions, and we do that. The only guy we don't move around is Santi (Montiel). You don't move around your starting shortstop, you just let him concentrate on shortstop. But God forbid if Santi, or any of them, but if Santi went down then Tissue is our other shortstop and he is getting a lot of reps. Last year he started at third for us, but he has been getting a lot of reps with the Blue team during intrasquad games. Covid has not gone away and injuries happen. A lot of teams have just one shortstop and pray that nothing happens, because their boat will sink. But we have some depth, and Tissue is as good as a lot of starting shortstops from other teams that we play."

- On third base:
"Tissue played a very good third base for us last year. This year we have Tissue and Landon Jordan, who has really swung the bat well all fall and into the early spring. Tissue is a right-handed hitter and LJ is a left-handed hitter and has played very good defense. And Auerbach can slide around and play third base as well."

- On shortstop:
"You have Montiel and then Tissue at shortstop, and Auerbach can also play some shortstop – he does in intrasquads. Logan Malone is starting the year injured, so we haven't had a chance to look at him."

- On second base:
"Newcomer Erick Orbeta was probably one of the top-five JUCO hitters in the state of Florida at Miami-Dade, and is a solid second baseman who hits from the left side. In behind him is Noah Bailey, who plays some second, first and third; he has gotten much better defensively and he has a good bat. How he swings the bat will kind of factor in his playing time when he gets opportunities."

- On first base:
"Stokes slid over to first, and we also have Joe Sutton, who came in as a third baseman and we moved him over to first base. He is a right-handed bat who swung it well at Georgia Highlands Community College, and he had a pretty solid fall and early spring. He is a tough at-bat that gives us some right-handed balance; we're so left-handed dominant that Sutton will see some action at first base. He has taken to the position pretty well, and Coach (Alan) Luckie has done a really nice job with him. Kasey Donaldson plays some first base, a left-handed hitter who swings a good bat. He had a good fall and has been pretty good in the early spring. He has some power and had a very good career at Pearl River Community College. We have some depth and can move some guys around. And Joe Sullivan, who will probably be one of our starters in the outfield, also plays first base."

- On the depth at catcher:
"This is the deepest – in 2013 we had (Drew) Cofield, (Whitt) Dorsey and Brent Mitchell, and it was kind of like the old saying, 'If you have two quarterbacks you don't have one.' I used three catchers, they were all phenomenal, and we won 43 games. Mitchell had the broken hand and would come in and catch the relievers when the game was close; that was his job, it would have been too much on his hand to catch the whole game so he would come in and catch (Kyle) Bartsch and (Dylan) Stamey with the game on the line and that was just about as much as he could handle with his hand. And Dorsey and Cofield were phenomenal. Nobody got worn down, and then we had our best defender in there with the game on the line in Mitchell. 

"This is as deep of a catching corps as I have since I been here, and they have all improved immensely from the fall. (Reid) Powers has a lot of experience here in the program. Diego (Altamirano), a newcomer who throw the ball and blocks the ball extremely well; he has done a great job cleaning up his receiving, and he will get in there and is not a dressed-up out. Carter Sanford went away and had a great summer in arguably one of the top-three summer leagues in the country in the Appalachian League. He has probably made the most improvement in the last year as I have seen; he is starting to put himself in another category, it's just about being consistent with everything with receiving and the position. To me it is a defensive position, but if guys are close then I will err on the side of experience and who is swinging the bat better. It is kind of jumbled up; there isn't a huge gap between any of them. Reid has the most experience in this program, and has really come on. He showed what he could do in 2020 in the Covid-shortened season. Last year he tapered off, but this year he is a version of what he was in 2020 mentally right now. He has done a good job with the pitchers and controlling the tempo of the game. Defensively he has been very solid. Harrison Ware missed the whole fall due to a personal family matter, and he has come back and been better in a month than he has ever been. He is a guy who could get some time and ABs. He is our best athlete and runner behind the plate, he has just missed some reps. Receiving-wise, he is better than he has ever been, and is swinging the bat really well right now. DJ Law is another guy who adds some depth in there. There isn't a drop off between starting catcher and the rest of them defensively; they all receive, block and throw well. It's one of those things of falling into a good problem to have. When all you have is one on the roster that you can win a game with, that is a serious problem. I think we have five catchers that we can go and win a game with. We have guys we can mix in and out that I don't think our pitching staff or defense suffers with any of those guys in there. We'll have one guy who will carry the load, but there are some scenarios where we have some other guys we can put in back there and help us win the game."

The Jaguars will open the 2022 season Fri., Feb. 18, when they host Radford at 6:30 p.m. at Stanky Field.

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