NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The 47 members of the Troy baseball traveling party gathered around head coach Skylar Meade in the visiting dugout of Hawkins Field. It was shortly after 6 p.m. on March 4, and the Trojans had just lost 4-1 to Vanderbilt to fall to 5-7 on the young season.
It was not time to panic … yet. But for a team with plans to play in the NCAA Tournament, it was getting late early.
“We have to be better,” said Meade, the 41-year-old fifth-year head coach. “We have to elevate our competitive nature. You can be pissed. You better be pissed. Understand how fricking hard it is. I will deal with no pouty bulls—. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. It’s about getting better, just getting f—ing better. We are a great team. We are playing great teams. We are getting tested.”
While the players collected their equipment and cleaned the dugout, Meade grabbed a headset for his postgame interview with Barry McKnight, the voice of the Trojans.
After a few minutes, McKnight asked Meade what he saw on the final play of the game, a double-play turned by Vanderbilt that resulted in both benches clearing after the Commodores took exception to a hard — but legal — slide by Troy’s Sean Darnell. No punches were thrown, but it was an eventful conclusion to a Wednesday afternoon game in early March.
“It was a clean slide, (but) I have no problem with Vandy,” Meade said. “They play in the SEC. If their kids don’t have their guy’s back, they are not going to win a game in that league. You should be competitive. I have zero qualms with that. And cooler heads prevailed.”
For Meade, it was the end of a frustrating day. A mid-major program like Troy — always fighting for respect, not to mention quality wins to impress the NCAA Tournament selection committee — gets only so many opportunities to play teams from the SEC.
“We gotta find some stuff offensively to get going,” said Meade, who granted The Athletic an all-access window into his program for its trip to Nashville. “We didn’t tonight, but I have no doubt that we will.”
Five hours earlier, Troy’s bus rolled to a stop just outside Hawkins Field after making the short drive from the Vanderbilt Holiday Inn. It was time for the pregame scout on Vanderbilt freshman pitcher Connor Hamilton.
“Right-handed arm. You will see 92 (mph) — probably more 92-93 — top holds 95, but will cruise 92-93,” associate head coach Ben Wolgamot said. “Fastball will have a little bit of carry, especially at the top. Slider will have a little sweep to it. And the change is very rare. Will he throw it today? We’ll see, but it is ultra rare. It has a little bit of fade. Before the game even starts, we are turning him into a two-pitch guy. He is a fastball, slider guy.”
Troy played in the NCAA Tournament in 2023 but just missed the field in 2024 and 2025. (Taylor Fraze / Troy Athletics)
It was a remarkably detailed report for a freshman who, to that point, had thrown a total of 3 1/3 innings in the first three weeks of his collegiate career.
“Lefties, and righties, we are on the heater, and we are hunting the middle-in part of the plate. He is going fastballs to the glove side. So, eliminate away.
“He will miss. His misses have been heavy arm-side. He has two (hit by pitches) this year out of the pen. He will hit you. They set up multiple times on the inside in his last outing, and he threw fastballs in the dirt. That means he is terrified to go in. So you cannot even think about the pitch in. You cheat out over the plate, you get extended and hard contact will happen.”
Wolgamot then gave way to Meade, who also serves as the pitching coach, to talk about the plan for Vanderbilt’s hitters.
“Righties, you have to throw breaking balls convicted to your glove side — to the lefties, obviously. Lefties, into the righties,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you repeat 10 in a row, but if you show that, you will be in a good spot. And we just have to lift some fastballs. That is a big miss area for them.”
He stressed the importance of a fast start against a Vanderbilt team off to an uncharacteristic slow start. The Commodores entered the day with a 7-6 record after losing three games in Las Vegas the previous weekend and at home to Central Arkansas the night before.
“Just realize we will have their full attention. But obviously, they are also going to get our best shot. … They know how good we are. We just have to go out and execute our game plan.
“Let’s have a great day.”
The Trojans, in good spirits after Meade’s pep talk, disembarked and filed into the 24-year-old stadium tucked neatly between Memorial Gymnasium and FirstBank Stadium on the western edge of Vanderbilt’s urban campus.
The players got situated in the visitors dugout while Vanderbilt took batting practice. Some players got treatment from athletic trainer Amber McNulty. Most of the others were milling about and stretching.
The atmosphere was relaxed, but there was no denying the significance of this game. Troy, one of the top mid-major programs in the country, has lived on the NCAA Tournament bubble the past three seasons. The Trojans made the field in 2023, as a No. 3 seed in the Tuscaloosa Regional, but just missed in 2024 and 2025 despite winning 37 and 39 games, respectively.
Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin coached against Skylar Meade when Meade pitched at Louisville in the mid-2000s. (Mitch Light / The Athletic)
Vanderbilt might be struggling, but a win over an SEC team — especially on the road — is always a big deal. The Trojans had already played two SEC opponents this season, losing at Mississippi State 13-7 on Feb. 17 and beating Georgia 6-5 in 11 innings on Feb. 25.
“When you look in May, and maybe you’re on the fringe (of the NCAA Tournament), and you’re looking at a tough loss in February, you realize every game matters,” said senior Drew Nelson, a Troy native who played his first two seasons at Auburn. “You play 56, and every single one of them matters.”
And although these might not be the Commodores of Dansby Swanson and Walker Buehler or Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker, Vanderbilt is still one of the biggest brands in the sport — and one that, evidently, resonates internationally.
“When you’re younger, the only team you hear about is Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt this, Vanderbilt that,” said senior first baseman Blake Cavill, who grew up in Sydney, Australia. “And now I’m here, and we’re ready to go.”
Troy hopped into the cages at 1:35 p.m. for batting practice. Assistant coach Ryan Fineman threw BP because Hamilton, Vanderbilt’s starter, was right-handed. When the Trojans face a left-handed starter, Meade, who pitched at Louisville in the mid-2000s, steps in.
“I love throwing BP,” Meade said. “Although, our guys still think I don’t like to get hit.”
Meade spent a few minutes talking to Corbin — whom he later called “one of the greatest (coaches) of all time” — and Vanderbilt pitching coach Scott Brown. This was Meade’s first game against Vanderbilt as a head coach, but he faced the Commodores for two seasons while he was the pitching coach at Middle Tennessee (2013-14) and for four years in the same role at South Carolina (2018-21).
“Skylar is a very good coach,” Corbin said. “I always like seeing him. He’s a bright-eyed kid. He’s very positive. He’s respectful. He does things the right way. He’s built a good staff.”
After BP wraps up, it was basically just a waiting game. Vanderbilt typically plays its early-season midweek games at 4:30 p.m. but agreed to start this one at 3 p.m. so Troy could get back to campus at a reasonable hour. The Commodores, who added this game late in the scheduling process, also paid for Troy’s hotel rooms and food.
The players congregated around Meade at 2:47 p.m. for a quick pregame talk. He reminded them about the unique wind patterns at Hawkins Field, where balls seemingly hit out of play down the left-field line often drift back into fair territory.
His final words: “We have to out-tough them.”
Hamilton opened the game at 3:02 p.m. by striking out Aaron Piasecki on four pitches, but then walked Jimmy Janicki and Nelson. Troy caught a break when Cavill’s groundball to first got stuck in Chris Maldonado’s glove, resulting in a generous infield single to load the bases with one out.
The Trojans were one swing away from jumping out to an early lead and putting serious pressure on the Commodores’ freshman pitcher. But on a 1-0 count, Nico Azpilcueta chopped a grounder to third. Before the ball even hit the glove of third baseman Brodie Johnston, Meade said, “He’s got a bazooka.” The sophomore third baseman fielded the ball, took a few steps to his right, touched third and fired across the diamond to complete an inning-ending double play.
It was a missed opportunity that frustrated Meade.
“You got (Hamilton) reeling a little bit,” he said after the game. “And so those are those pivotal moments where, when you struggle sometimes, that happens. Had you gotten the hit and it’s 2-0 and the merry-go-round gets going, your mojo is through the roof.”
The Trojans made some good contact to start the top of the third, with Josh Pyne and Piasecki both hitting the ball to the warning track in right field, but during one stretch from the top of the second into the fifth, Vanderbilt retired 10 of 11 Troy batters.
Before the top of the sixth, Wolgamot called an impromptu team meeting in the dugout.
“We make them f—ing pay for the next four innings,” he said. “We are too good. They make a bad pitch, we rip it.”
Janicki ripped a one-out double to left center but was stranded when Nelson struck out and Cavill flew out to center to keep it scoreless through 5 1/2 innings.
Vanderbilt finally broke through in the bottom of the sixth when Johnston blasted a 2-0 pitch over the bleachers in left center. Two batters later, Maldonado made it 2-0 when he hit the first pitch from reliever Matt Dill for his first home run since the 2023 season.
Meade tried to keep things upbeat. “Solos don’t beat you,” he said to no one and everyone at the same time. But Vanderbilt tacked on single runs in the seventh (on a wild pitch) and eighth (on a failed pickoff move to second) to make it 4-0.
Troy threatened in the top of the ninth, scoring its only run on a Darnell single to right field, but the game ended moments later on the double play and ensuing brouhaha at second base.
“We have a sense of urgency. We have to figure it out,” Meade told the team. “It’s about the work, OK? It is about work. Putting in disciplined work. Understand: The game plan wins, your execution wins.
“Now, let’s clean this place up and get out of here.”
A few minutes later, the players and coaches exited Hawkins Field and grabbed a boxed dinner from Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint for the five-hour bus ride back to Troy, Ala.