As Braden Holcomb rounded second base after launching a three-run homer in the fifth inning of Vanderbilt's 16-5 win over Marist on Friday, he gestured toward the bullpen in left field. Luke Guth raised both his hands to acknowledge the slugger. Several other Vanderbilt relievers screamed and cheered emphatically for the go-ahead blast.
England Bryan, though, gave just a brief point toward the field — subtle, almost restrained — then refocused himself on the scene in front of him. Before Holcomb even touched third, Bryan was locked in again, resetting his breathing and looking in at the bullpen catcher as if to say he was ready to throw another warm-up pitcj.
Bryan stayed loose in the bullpen during that fifth inning, throwing a group of moderate effort pitches while discussing pitch grips with the coaches standing around him. Guth too sat behind him, tracking each throw and engaging the big right-hander. 11 hitters came to the plate for Vanderbilt in the home fifth as Bryan warmed, but his rhythm was never disrupted.
When he finally jogged to the mound to the sound of Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue,” the moment didn’t seem to swell around Bryan. He took a deep breath, stared in at Marist shortstop Noel Rivera, and delivered his first pitch.
Rivera — seemingly unphased by Bryan’s gaze — snuck a single past a diving Ryker Waite at shortstop, and Bryan then fell behind the Red Foxes’ AJ Brotz 3-0. He recovered to retire the Red Foxes’ cleanup hitter and briefly looked poised to escape the inning unscathed. But Connor Lawrence’s two-run home run put runs on Bryan’s ledger — and, more importantly, pulled Marist back into the game.
A sequence like that may have rattled the freshman version of Bryan into unraveling on the mound. But in 2026, the Hillsboro native didn’t panic. In fact, he did quite the opposite. After allowing a single to Kyle Pollack, Bryan escaped the inning without further damage. Tim Corbin could’ve pulled the plug on Bryan’s day right then and there. Instead, he sent Bryan back out for the seventh inning, and the sophomore rewarded his manager with a 1-2-3 inning, and then another clean frame in the eighth, aided by a double-play ball.
“When Bryan came in after [allowing the home run], he was a little bit upset,” Corbin said. “But he doesn’t throw a tantrum and he handles himself well. He’s a young, mature kid and he can [pitch multiple inning] for us.”
By pitching the final three innings of a Vanderbilt win, Bryan recorded the first save of his collegiate career in an unconventional manner. Still, that means something after navigating through early trouble.
“You’re going to get hit,” Bryan told Vandy OnSI. “Guys are going to hit long balls. The key is just no free bases.”
Bryan has a massive presence — both literally and figuratively — on the mound, coming at hitters from a 6’1, 225-pound frame. Velocity has always come naturally for the right-hander, consistently touching the upper 90s and, at times, even triple digits on his fastball. Bryan’s Achilles heel, though, has been his command. He walked 17.9% of hitters he faced last season and plunked an additional five batters, leading to constant traffic on the bases and an about average 4.15 ERA in 13 innings.
Unsatisfied with his command struggles last season, Bryan chose to stay in Nashville over the summer and refine his precision. Working with Vanderbilt’s strength staff and pitching coaches, Bryan cleaned up his mechanics and harnessed some changes in his lower half with the help of Quality Control coach Tyler Herb and the Core Velocity Belt. Though Bryan doesn’t consider himself a very analytically driven person, Herb has helped him learn to use the data to his advantage.
The early returns are encouraging: Bryan has yet to allow a free pass in 4.2 innings of work this season.
Here are Bryan’s mechanics from 2025 (left) compared to this spring.
Looks like he's raised his arm angle, which should lead to more IVB (carry) on the fastball. There’s also noticeably more trunk tilt in the torso at release. https://t.co/4pD5Zbu7Hy pic.twitter.com/esebnddkD3
“I think England's slowed himself down,” Corbin said. “Last year he was kind of a ball of thunder coming into the game. Being a young kid who’s got a good arm he always wanted to attack rather than settling in and pitching. [Scott] Brown’s and [Herb] have done a nice job of just settling him into pitching and also manipulating the ball a little bit differently than he did last year.”
In manipulating the ball, Bryan has not only improved his sinker and cutter — which is really more of a gyro slider — but has also revamped a fourth pitch that’s the key to his entire arsenal: a low-spin, tumbling split-finger that Bryan throws north of 90 MPH and hovers near the zero vertical break line.
“I threw the splitter last year,” Bryan said. “But it wasn’t as crisp. I cleaned up my mechanics over the summer and that’s made my splitter a lot better this year.”
As a standalone, that pitch is a dynamic weapon to any hitter. But in the context of his arsenal, it’s perhaps even better. While Bryan’s sinker and cutter both thrive against right-handed hitters, his splitter gives him a plus offering to lefties as well — an advantage that’s become especially important to Vanderbilt’s pitching staff with the injuries to southpaws Matthew Shorey, Miller Greene and Aiden Stillman.
Jakob Schulz is the Commodores’ only healthy left-handed pitcher at the moment, meaning right-handers who can effectively get lefties out with platoon neutral pitches — typically changeups or splitters fading away from lefty batters — prove extremely valuable.
“Right now, we’re down a few lefties, so you need to have righties who can neutralize left-handed hitters,” Corbin said. “[England] can do that.”
Outside of allowing the home run in the sixth inning Friday, Bryan has been near flawless to start 2026. He’s struck out well over a batter per inning, and with his premium and velocity and newfound feel for the off-speed, looks poised to emerge as one of Vanderbilt’s late-game relief options. After his 1.2 scoreless innings in Arlington last weekend, Baseball America named Bryan one of 13 Underclass College MLB Draft Prospects to Know.
“It’s just attacking the hitters,” Bryan said. “Fill up the zone, and if I get a strikeout, cool.”
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Dylan Tovitz is a sophomore at Vanderbilt University, originally from Livingston, New Jersey. In addition to writing for Vanderbilt on SI, he serves as a deputy sports editor for the Vanderbilt Hustler and co-produces and hosts ‘Dores Unlocked, a weekly video show about Commodore sports. Outside the newsroom, he is a campus tour guide and an avid New York sports fan with a particular passion for baseball. He also enjoys listening to country and classic rock music and staying active through tennis and baseball.
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