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TAMPA, Fla. – The USF <\/a>baseball team is ready for the 2026 season to begin.<\/p>\n The Bulls open up the season at home against Illinois on Friday, Feb. 13.<\/p>\n This will mark the second season under head coach Mitch Hannahs.<\/p>\n The USF baseball team is excited for the season to get here.\u00a0<\/p>\n MORE NEWS: Lightning, Bruins to face off in Tampa’s first outdoor NHL game<\/a><\/p>\n “I think everybody is ready to start playing,” USF senior catcher Lance Trippel said. “I know I am.”<\/p>\n Mitch Hannahs is ready too, as\u00a0he begins his second year at the helm.\u00a0<\/p>\n What they’re saying:<\/p>\n “We pushed them really hard,” USF head coach Mitch Hannas said. “We are notorious for having a really tough fall camp, and we did.”<\/p>\n Now that the Bulls are out on the other side of fall camp, they believe the sky is the limit for their success in 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I think we are a gritty team,” Trippel said. “We’re going to do what it takes. Whatever needs to be done, we are going to do it.”<\/p>\n And they hope to do something this program has not done in a long time.\u00a0<\/p>\n “There’s no more excuses,” USF senior infielder Rafael Betancourt said. “We are ready to make a postseason run.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Dig deeper:<\/p>\n The coaches in the conference are doubting the Bulls’ chances to make a run. Before last season, USF was picked to finish last in the American. This year, they are projected to finish fifth. Obviously, it’s a step up, but the Bulls want more.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I would love to win the conference championship,” Trippel said. “I think everybody would feel the same way. That would be awesome. Regional. I want to get to a regional, super-regional, Omaha, but that’s like the first step.”<\/p>\n Before any steps are made,\u00a0the Bulls plan on being where their feet are. They aim to capitalize on their offseason.<\/p>\n “I don’t think there is any question this group has worked really hard,” Hannahs said. “I think the reality for us now is are we detail oriented?”<\/p>\n The team says they are all bought into the details, which they think has led to a stronger bond.<\/p>\n “I really do feel like the locker room is in a healthy place this year,” Betancourt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n And with the guys in the locker room,\u00a0USF hopes to go on a postseason run for the first time since 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Hopefully we can get some wins, put our best foot forward and be the best team we can be,” Trippel said.\u00a0<\/p>\n What’s next:<\/p>\n The Bulls open up the 2026 season in two weeks against Illinois.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Source: The information in this story was gathered by FOX 13’s Mark Skol, Jr. during interviews with players and coaches at the USF baseball media day availability.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tampa<\/a>University of South Florida<\/a>NCAA Sports<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article TAMPA, Fla. – The USF baseball team is ready for the 2026 season to begin. The Bulls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[47,629,67359,1536,110,135,137,136,628,1537],"class_list":{"0":"post-138064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-fl","9":"tag-hillsborough","10":"tag-ncaa-sports","11":"tag-organization","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tampa","14":"tag-tampa-headlines","15":"tag-tampa-news","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usf"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}