The 2026 Creighton baseball season marks a new chapter for the program. Long-time head coach Ed Servais retired after more than 20 years at the helm, finishing with 721 career wins, six regular-season conference titles, five conference tournament championships, and six NCAA Tournament appearances. Mark Kingston, who had served as head-coach-in-waiting during Servais’s final season, now takes over as the official head coach.
Kingston inherits a team coming off a strong 2025 campaign. The Bluejays captured both the Big East regular-season and conference tournament titles and made a solid run in the NCAA Fayetteville Regional, defeating Kansas and North Dakota State before falling to No. 3 Arkansas in the Regional Final. Creighton opened the 2026 season on the road with a three-game series against the Saint Mary’s College Gaels in Moraga, Calif.
Creighton jumped on the Gaels early Friday. Three batters were hit by pitches and another walked in the top of the first, giving the Bluejays a 1-0 lead. Graduate student outfielder Teddy Deters, who hit .248 with 33 RBI in 2025, extended the lead with a homer in the second inning. Singles from senior Nate McHugh, who batted .270 with 24 RBI last season, and junior Connor Capece, who hit .351 with 41 RBI and earned All-BIG EAST Second Team honors, set the table for a sacrifice fly by newcomer first-baseman Chris Baillargeon. The graduate transfer from Holy Cross hit .376 with 52 RBI last season.
By the third inning, Creighton had built a 4-0 lead. Redshirt senior shortstop Ben North, who led the team in 2025 with 59 RBI and a .289 batting average, added three RBIs over the course of the game, while Capece, McHugh, and graduate transfer Lew Rice, who hit .324 at Charleston Southern, contributed multiple hits. Creighton scored five more in the seventh and took the opener 11-3 behind junior starter Jack Pineau, who allowed two runs on six hits over five innings. Relievers junior Evan Stratton, a transfer from Riverside City College, and sophomore Anthony Unga closed out the game.
The first game of Saturday’s doubleheader was a challenge. Creighton struck early with back-to-back home runs from Baillargeon and Deters to take a 2-1 lead, but Saint Mary’s answered immediately. The Gaels scored four runs in the fifth and added another in the seventh to pull out a 7-2 victory.
Sophomore Wilson Magers, who threw 72.2 innings with a 3.47 ERA in 2025 and was named BIG EAST Freshman of the Year, pitched four innings, while redshirt senior Jimmy Burke, who posted a 4.35 ERA and 38 strikeouts over 49.2 innings last season, took the loss. McHugh and graduate transfer Rocco Gump, a third-baseman from Northwestern State who hit .303 last season, led Creighton with two hits apiece.
The rubber match later Saturday afternoon started with a bang for Creighton, which sent 12 batters to the plate in the first inning, scoring seven runs. Contributions came from Gump, McHugh, Deters, Capece, Baillargeon, Lew Rice, a graduate transfer from Charleston Southern who batted .324 last season, and Isaac Wachsmann, a redshirt junior from Xavier who hit .228. Wachsmann’s three-run homer highlighted the early surge.
Saint Mary’s clawed back with multiple runs over the first three innings, bringing the game within three. Creighton managed to maintain a narrow lead through the middle innings. Freshman reliever Brian Gould held the Gaels to two runs over three innings, and senior Ian Koosman, who pitched 60.1 innings with 59 strikeouts in 2025, closed out the game over the final four innings, inducing a game-ending double play. Redshirt senior Brett Williams added a solo homer in the eighth to keep the Gaels at bay. Creighton held on for a 9-8 victory, claiming the series and moving to 2-1 on the season.
Creighton will travel to La Jolla, California, to face UC San Diego on tonight at 8 p.m., beginning the Tony Gwynn Tournament. The team will also take on University of San Diego and Utah during the weekend event.