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Texas Baseball's Dylan Volantis Earns Freshman All-American Honors

Originally posted on Texas Longhorns on SI
By Connor Zimmerlee | Last updated Jun 9, 2025 6:55 PM ET

While there is no doubt plenty of excitement to be found in an offense capable of launching long balls at any given point, those same thrills can be found in a dominant pitching staff. For the Texas Longhorns, they relied on the latter of the two to carry them throughout the 2025 season.

Boasting one of the nation's best stable of arms, the Longhorns sported a remarkable 3.71 team ERA during the campaign. Among the trove of talented arms was a standout name, however, as freshman left-hander Dylan Volantis was an absolute monster on the mound and named to the NCBWA Freshman All-American team on Monday afternoon.

Selecting Volantis for a First Team All-American spot was an absolute no-brainer and one look at his lengthy list of stats will quickly tell you why. First and foremost, the southpaw was given closer duties as a freshman and proceeded to record 12 saves. Of those 12, 11 came in conference play which set an SEC single-season record for a freshman, breaking Ole Miss' Steven Head's 22-year-old record.

As impressive as that stat is, it is far from the only one tha truly illustrates how untouchable Volantis was whenever he came in out of the bullpen. Earning the trust of Jim Schlossnagle and Max Weiner in his first year, he led the Longhorns in appearances with 23, 22 of which came in relief.

Unbothered by the heavy workload, he simply got to work every time he toed the rubber. In those outings he sported a sparkling 1.94 ERA, the best on the Longhorns, en route to a 4-1 record. His most dominant aspect was his ability to rack up strikeouts in bunches. Making hitters look silly, Volantis recorded a team-high 74 strikeouts while only walking 12 batters and holding hitters to a mere .185 average.

that’s our Freshman All-American #HookEm | @DylanVolantis | @NCBWA pic.twitter.com/4vNGtrKId6
— Texas Baseball (@TexasBaseball) June 9, 2025

For a freshman, the southpaw was not just one of the best pitchers in the conference but all of college baseball. Fortunately for the Longhorns the future is bright and will feature plenty more of Volantis' nasty strikeouts.

This article first appeared on Texas Longhorns on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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