OFF-SEASON MOVES: Third Coast Renegades AC Reload for 2026, Revealing New Roster

The Renegades enter 2026 riding the momentum of an exceptional season where they captured the 2025 Gulf Division Championship, winning four of six regular-season tournaments. Three of those victories were delivered by the team’s primary roster: Captain Landon Bell, mates Connor McLeod and Zack Redman, and angler Gregg Trenor competing aboard Southern Charm/All-In, based out of Orange Beach, Alabama. The group amassed more than $2 million in prize money, cementing their status as one of the most successful teams of the season.

Both Bell and Trenor took home Captain of The Year and Angler of The Year at December’s SFC AWARDS for their efforts last season. 

The Renegades’ year concluded with a second-place finish at the Zane Grey Championship Playoffs in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. There, Bell, Trenor, Redman, and McLeod competed aboard Magnifico, a 60-foot Spencer sportfishing yacht owned by Renegades AC co-owner Garrett Frazier, with the Magnifico crew hosting the team for the championship event.

That tournament turned out to be a literal changing of the guard for the Renegades, with their 2025 roster competing alongside what would be their 2026 roster.

Introducing the 2026 Renegades Roster

How does one replace the Captain and Angler of the year? The Renegades have assembled a roster centered around one of the most accomplished big-game programs of 2025 in Cabo San Lucas, with a historic summer, and a second place finish in the prestigious Bisbee’s Black & Blue. They teamed up alongside Toby and Jaselyn Berthelot of the Mississippi Blues in that tournament. 

*Editor’s note: The Renegades are updating their roster day-by-day by introducing a new member to their team, so this list will continue to be updated.

Captain: Drake Sawyer, Port Aransas, Texas

At the helm for 2026 is Captain Drake Sawyer, who has skippered Magnifico for three years, starting in January 2023. Sawyer played a pivotal role in transforming the 60' Spencer into a full-time, globe-trotting tournament machine, overseeing an ambitious outfitting project that began in the Bahamas, transitioned through the Gulf of Mexico, and ultimately culminated in the Pacific. 

First Mate: Sparky Delassus, Rockport, Texas
Second Mate: Robert Tyson, Mississippi
Angler: Dylan Frazier, Corpus Christi, Texas
Media Officer: Dusty Sousley, Fox Island, Washington

This experienced crew brings together Gulf Coast toughness and Pacific big-game precision: an ideal combination for the demands of the SFC schedule.

A Summer Day That Turned Heads Worldwide

July 23, 2025, fishing off Cabo San Lucas, Sawyer and his crew released five billfish grand slams in a single day. The team released six blue marlin, five striped marlin, and six sailfish, breaking a Pacific record that had stood since 1995. The Atlantic record, set in 1999, also sits at four, making Magnifico’s performance that much more stellar.

An all-female squad of anglers on board was responsible for that feat, including Sawyer’s wife, Katie Coeckelenbergh-Sawyer, a professional angler who is no stranger to SFC competition. A former member of the broadcast team, Coeckelenbergh-Sawyer briefly served as a mate for Mississippi Blue Angling Club in the 2025 season. After a special grant from the competition committee, she was allowed to compete in the Zane Grey Championship Playoffs as an angler for the Third Coast Renegades. 

Both she and Captain Drake grew up in Port Aransas, Texas. It is unclear at the moment whether she will be an angler full-time for the club in 2026. 

Throttles Down In 2026

Magnifico is already on its way home from Cabo San Lucas. She was loaded onto a transport ship before the New Year. Once she gets back to the U.S. there will likely need to be some housekeeping in order to set the boat up for a full Gulf division schedule.

The Gulf division has proven to be the most nuanced and unique competition of the areas SFC competes, involving heavier tackle for the priority on targeting blue marlin, equipping tuna tubes for live bait with larger tunas, as well as fuel bladders for the additional range required over a three-day competition with no true geographical boundaries other than the physical Gulf itself.

It’s a division that has produced every SFC Champion since the league’s inaugural season in 2022, including the first champion of the professional angling club era, with their in-state rivals the Texas Lone Stars taking the crown this past season.