SAN ANTONIO – In the current era of college athletics, student-athlete transfers have become prevalent, making consistency and roster management difficult for many teams. But for UTSA head coach Pat Hallmark, he’s succeeded at retaining top talent on his roster and has overwhelmingly recruited players who are dedicated to the program, their teammates and Hallmark’s vision. When it comes to the transfer portal, he’s made it a net positive.
“We’re adaptable,” Hallmark said. “There’s no guarantee. We could get hurt by the portal. We lost some good players, but we’re here because they left. That’s a fact. These players are a big reason why we’re in a Super Regional. It’s adaptability, it’s persistence and, at the end of the day, you do what you can with what you have.”
In Sunday’s NCAA Regional Championship victory against No. 2 national seed Texas, a trio of transfers – all of whom joined the Roadrunners in advance of this season from other four-year institutions – came up big, as they have all season.
Seeking its first NCAA Super Regional appearance in program history, Hallmark – the 2025 American Athletic Conference Coach of the Year – turned to Gunnar Brown, a senior right-handed pitcher who played his first two seasons at Cisco College before transferring to Sam Houston, where he made only two appearances last season.
Brown (4-2) tossed five stellar innings, striking out four and allowing just one earned run as UTSA built an early 7-1 lead against the host Longhorns. It was the culmination of a season of perseverance for Brown, who embraced being pushed past the limits even he imagined for himself.
“Gunnar was fantastic,” Hallmark said of Brown’s performance on Sunday. “I’m hard on people; I’ve been hard on Gunnar. He’s a very relaxed, fun-loving young man. In the fall and the early spring, I was really hard on him. I’m so proud of him. He took the hard coaching and he kept showing up. On the biggest stage, he showed up.”
Brown started the season throwing primarily sliders but, along the way, Hallmark and pitching coach Zach Butler identified that Brown’s breaking pitch might be his most effective route to success on the mound.
“Early in the year, I wasn’t using him right,” Hallmark said. “We were throwing a lot of sliders with him and then we noticed the breaker was really good. It’s a little slower; most people like velocity. But we started going with the curve ball more.”
Norris McClure, UTSA’s third baseman who has started 53 games this season, joined the Roadrunners after playing four seasons at Spring Hill College, an NCAA Division II institution in Mobile, Ala. McClure, who is third on the team with a .356 batting average and has driven in 42 runs, went 3-for-5 in Sunday’s win with two RBI and several great defensive plays.
McClure’s two-run home run in the bottom of the first inning Sunday set the tone for the Roadrunners and his catch in foul territory late in the game gave UTSA a critical first out in the top of the ninth.
“I’ll obviously never forget,” McClure said of the team’s three wins against Texas this season. “I was playing DII ball last year, nowhere close to this. For anybody that’s watching that’s in this spot, stay with it. This is special.”
McClure is exactly the type of player that UTSA seeks when constructing its roster, bringing together a skill set that makes the Roadrunners a difficult team for opponents to face.
“I still don’t know how Norris ended up at a DII school,” Hallmark said. “We have big physical kids and they run very well. That’s normally what you see at the Power 4 level. Even in the fall, I knew this team was different than most mid-majors. It’s the combination of the physical body and the speed that they can play the game with.”
Ty Hodge, a junior College Station, Texas, native played at both Texas A&M and Houston Christian before signing with UTSA alongside his brother and fellow infielder, Nathan, in advance of this season. He’s played in 56 games for the Roadrunners this season with 49 starts with 12 doubles and 41 RBI.
On Sunday against Texas, Hodge – the starting shortstop - went 2-for-3 with three RBI. His three-run double into center field in the third was the highlight of a five-run inning that extended UTSA’s advantage to 7-0.
“I think that our whole team has a lot of confidence,” Hodge said. “We know that we can play with anybody in the country. It’s just sticking to what we know. Just throwing strikes, executing pitches, playing good defense, swinging at good pitches and taking your best swing.”
Hodge made the choice to attend UTSA late in the summer of 2024. The reputation of the Roadrunners’ program and their coaching staff made his decision an easy one.
“I knew the reputation of UTSA Baseball, just the toughness and grittiness and the reputation that Coach Hallmark and this program have,” Hodge said. “They continually win and produce good seasons over and over. It was kind of a no-brainer for me coming here. When you commit somewhere, you kind of don’t know what to expect, but we knew pretty quickly this could be a special team.”
The additions to UTSA’s program entering the 2025 campaign meshed with the existing roster to create a special team that enjoys competing together.
“We knew that we were good at baseball but, off the field, this group loves each other and it’s a joy for me to come to the ballpark and just hang out with them every day,” Hodge said. “We feel like this isn’t a surprise; we deserve to be here. We’ve still got a few more to go.”