Colorado baseball 2026 season preview

Charlie Lesch is set for another spring as the Colorado Buffaloes' catcher. (Photo by Jacob Hock/Sko Buffs Sports)

The Colorado Buffaloes club baseball team is chasing consecutive seasons with sour endings, with its new campaign starting Friday.

The fresh and hungry Buffs are seeking to reclaim their title atop the Mid-America West division for the first time in two years and hope to return to the NCBA World Series for the first time in three.

However, that takes place in May. First, Colorado takes off to Dallas, Texas, for a four-team round-robin tournament to showcase the updated lineup this weekend.

Lineup

The club announced its full 30-man roster at the end of January, featuring a fairly distributed team across classes. Nine freshmen made the cut, including one newcomer, Gabe Zebrack, who turned many heads in his successful fall ball season.

Zebrack delivered a red-hot team-leading .591 batting average and is expected to bat leadoff this weekend.

“If I had to give you one name, it would be Gabe Zebrack,” Nathan Hoffman, president of the club, said. “He’s a stud … Our freshman class is super talented.”

While most freshmen will see less time on the field, others like Wesley Freed and Tyler Gray are picked to be viable options out of the bullpen.

Hoffman is slotted to hit behind Zebrack in the tentative batting lineup, hunting for a successful season in his last year at Colorado. Hoffman is the only senior who’s been with the club for all four years and was announced as the 2025-26 club president over the summer.

“Nate sets the tone,” head coach Colin Reynolds said about his senior leadership. “He was on the squad when we made our playoff and World Series run … I think he’s got that appetite to get back. That’s the tone that he’s setting and the expectation that he’s holding to a lot of the guys.”

Hoffman swung a 1.139 OPS in the 2025 season and looks to bring his high-contact, low swing-and-miss speed back to Scott Carpenter Park.

One sophomore, Caedon Meyer, had a breakout fall at the plate and locked down an integral role in the 2026 lineup. While swinging a .545 average and collecting 13 RBI, Meyer is anticipated to hit high in the order and start in right field.

Only a handful of positions are determined by placeholder thus far: Hoffman and Meyer in the outfield, Zebrack at first base, sophomore Charlie Lesch at catcher and junior Finn Simones at shortstop.

“We got some spots that we really need guys to prove themselves in,” Reynolds said. “In the infield, [we’re] trying to find that right combination, especially up the middle.”

Although there will be question marks around the Buffs’ discipline defensively, there is rarely a problem generating runs. Colorado averaged 7.7 runs per game in 2025 and always flies across the diamond, thriving in Boulder’s altitude. 

“I think that every single time we face anybody, we should put up eight to 10 runs, if not more,” Hoffman said.

One final prospect who both Hoffman and Reynolds are excited about is junior Chase Ambuehl. The speedy hitter recently transferred from Liberty University and is projected to help all around from the outfield to relieving on the mound.

“He definitely knows the game,” Reynolds said. “He’s got a lot of tools, he’s very quick, he’s got a good bat [and] a good arm. It’ll be interesting to see where he fits in.”

Pitching

The Buffs have fallen victim to pitching at altitude in the past, but feel they have a competent pitching staff this year that can produce wins.

Senior Peter Nickerson exploded in the fall and tallied 31 strikeouts over just 13.1 innings. For reference, pitching 13.1 innings equates to recording 40 total outs, and Nickerson put 31 of them away via strikeout. 

He forms an exclusive group of starting pitchers on the roster, joining senior counterpart Will Shine. Shine started the most games (six) for Colorado last spring and kept under a four ERA, returning to the starting rotation along with sophomore Archie Neibart. Neibart spent most of 2025 in relief and rounds out a tentative rotation with Nickerson and Shine.

Participating in the NCBA gives an alternative strategy to starting pitching, with a doubleheader traditionally on one day and the series finale on another. The doubleheader consists of two seven-inning games, while the finale plays a full nine. This adds another layer of strategy within managing bullpens and deciding which starting arms each team thinks can go the deepest.

Both Reynolds and Hoffman also have confidence in the bullpen, with a variety of players who can play on both sides of the ball.

“I think we have the most depth in our pitching,” Reynolds said. “We have a lot of guys who can come in and get three outs when we need them.”

Schedule

Across three days in Dallas, beginning on Friday, the Buffs play North Texas, Baylor, Oklahoma and Texas. Once the tournament concludes, the club will have nearly a month before the full swing of the season begins.

“This team is hungry,” Hoffman said. “They’re itching to play, they’re itching to compete.”

CU’s schedule features four non-conference series and six series to be played at Scott Carpenter Park. Intriguing opponents like Utah, Nebraska, Colorado State and Miami will all travel to Boulder this spring. 

“The circled series on our schedule every year is CSU,” Reynolds said. “We don’t take any games lightly. Our expectation is that we’re competing for a conference championship.”

Mid-America Conference

The Buffs play in a narrower Mid-Am West division in 2026, now without the Colorado School of Mines for the first time in nine years. The Orediggers were moved down to Division II, so the Buffs will compete with Colorado State, Metro State, Wyoming and Air Force.

“I think we have the most talented group out of all the teams in the conference,” Hoffman said. “It’s just a matter of if we show up in the big games.”

Once the regular season concludes, the team with the best conference record will advance to the Mid-America regional tournament, along with the North and South division-winners. One team in the conference that didn’t win its division receives an at-large bid to the regional tournament. The Buffs have gotten the at-large bid the last two years but haven’t made it out of the regional tournament since 2023, the year they competed in the NCBA World Series.

“I definitely think we’ve got the makeup top-to-bottom to win our conference,” Reynolds said. “We’ve got a squad that can compete against anybody.”

The journey back to the top for Colorado begins Feb. 13 for a doubleheader against North Texas and Baylor. Sko Buffs Sports is your home for everything club baseball this spring.