Kentucky baseball's Lukas Schramm, Drew Lafferty enter NCAA transfer portal

Following the recent end of their season in Omaha, Kentucky baseball has now lost a pair of freshmen, Lukas Schramm and Drew Lafferty, to the transfer portal, On3 has learned.

For Schramm, a broken hamate bone in the summer of 2023 following a redshirt true freshman season that spring didn’t help his cause, but he did see 21 at bats in 2024. Meanwhile, Lafferty also redshirted in ’23 but came back to appear in eight games and pitch for 21 total innings on the year.

The Wildcats finished 1-2 during its first-ever stay in Omaha over the past week. Defeating NC State in walk-off fashion to begin their College World Series journey, the Wildcats were eliminated and left disappointed after losing their next two matchups.

Despite the outcome, head coach Nick Mingione believes this Kentucky team will forever be remembered as winners.

Try Fubo for FREE today and don’t miss any of the action!

“I’ve been telling everybody all year, they’re just winners, literally in everything they do, they just — you can coach them in any way,” Mingione said. “You challenge them; they respond. You love on them; they love you back. You get on to them; they look you in the eye and say, yes, sir.

“They literally have done everything from the way we talk about the student/person/player, in our program, they’ve crushed it in the classroom. They’re unbelievable. Like our staff members that have children just telling me yesterday, Coach, watch these guys get on the floor and play with our kids and do all this. They’re just winners and it’s something we talk about in our program all the time. We talk about being a family. We were that.”

Mingione continued, explaining that Kentucky wasn’t just a winner in the sense that the Wildcats finished the season with a 46-16 record — the best for a Kentucky baseball team ever. As the Bat ‘Cats took the entire nation by storm with their unique offensive approach, the Wildcats were able to secure their first-ever share of an SEC regular season championship before making its debut in Omaha last week.

Not only did their hard work pay off on the field, but Mingione said his group are winners off the field regarding the way they carried themselves and how they remained disciplined in the weight room and with their diets.

“All of this has to do with winning,” he continued. “They’ve been unbelievable and their development is really important to us.

“I can look you all in the eye today and tell you, that we’ve done the best job we could to develop in every single area of their life, and therefore they’ve made history, and I just want everybody to know what kind of winners they are.”

On3’s Barkley Truax also contributed to this article