Looking Back at the 2026 Baseball Season

CARLINVILLE, IL – Blackburn College Athletics continues their look back at the 2025-26 baseball season.

The 2026 baseball season was highlighted with the team winning the most games in a season since 2017 as the Beavers finished the year with 16 wins despite an injury plagued final month.

Senior Royce Congi earned St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference honors as he was selected First Team All-SLIAC, finishing the season with 31 hits, seven doubles, and three home runs. He added 19 runs batted in while posting a .316 batting average and seven stolen bases. Congi aided the team's effort as the team's main shortstop and from the mound with seven appearances before an arm injury forced him into a designated hitter role.

Senior Harley Carney finished with a team best 35 hits and was second with a .314 average and six stolen bases. He added 13 RBI's. From the mound, he set a new school record with five saves in seven appearances.

Freshman Joey Congi added 25 hits plus a team-high 26 RBI's and had the team lead with eight home runs. He also had six doubles. Sophomore Jordan Kelly tallied 23 hits, 15 RBI's and batted .291. Freshman Santos Mercado hit .306 on the season with 22 hits and 15 RBI's.

Freshman Landon Harbach batted a team-best average of .317 on the year, finishing with 20 hits. Freshman Jeremy Mazariegos also had 20 hits during his debut season.

From the mound, sophomore Hunter Sarver and freshman Rudy Hinijosa led the team with three wins each. Caden Carpenter notched 32 strikeouts to led the team with Hinijosa adding 31.

The 2026 season began with a sweep over Monmouth College with BC winning the first game 5-3 and the second game 5-1. The Beavers dropped the first game of a three-game series with St. Norbert College before winning the next two 12-2 and 11-10 which gave the team a 4-1 start to the season.

Blackburn opened SLIAC play at Mississippi University for Women with three games before heading to Florida for spring break where they picked up two wins over North Central University and Martin Luther College each, and a win over Cornell College.

The Beavers returned home to defeat Maranatha Baptist University and Greenville College, then defeated Marantha Baptist two more times to close out March.

In April, Blackburn bested Principia College twice before injuries proved too much to overcome until the squad used back to back homers from R. Congi and Kelly to defeat Spalding University in the first game of their three game season finale.

Blackburn saw improvements across the board in addition to their wins. The 2026 team improved in runs scored, batting average, on base percentage, home runs, runs batted in, stolen bases, threw more strikeouts, allowed fewer hits while allowing a lower batting average from opponents.