Baseball: Summer Round Up
August 13, 2010 06:21 PM | General
August 13, 2010
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Twenty West Virginia University baseball student-athletes competed in collegiate baseball leagues across the country this summer.
"As in past years, the vast majority of our team played all summer in leagues across the country and had great experiences," said Mountaineer coach Greg Van Zant. "We have a history of placing student-athletes in some of the nation’s top leagues, and this summer was no different. (Assistant coach) Pat Sherald once again did a great job of matching our players up with the right teams.
"Summer baseball is a great chance for the Mountaineers to go out and see a different part of the country, improve their baseball skills and have fun. Our guys always come back to Morgantown showing great improvement in their game and in their confidence level."
Three Mountaineers are one game away from winning the 2010 Petitt Cup, as Grant Buckner, Mark Dvoroznak and Colin Durborow will take to the field this evening with the Forest City Owls in a quest for the Coastal Plain League (CPL) Championship. The squad, ranked No. 11 in the Aug. 8 Perfect Game Poll, defeated the Edenton Steamers 8-0 last night; a win this evening in Forest City, N.C., would give the team its second-straight cup.
Buckner, a redshirt-senior right fielder, ranks third on the team with a .264 batting average. Additionally, he ranks eighth in the league with 33 runs scored. His stat line also includes 42 hits, 22 RBIs, five home runs, three doubles and one triple in 159 plate appearances.
Classmate Dvoroznak, a centerfielder, ranks right behind Buckner on the team with a .261 batting average. Additionally, his 30 walks is the second-best Owl mark. Dvoroznak also has tallied 30 runs, 30 hits, 13 RBIs, four doubles and one home run.
Durborow, also a redshirt-senior and an infielder, owns a .241 batting average and has accounted for 26 hits, 20 runs, 11 RBIs, six doubles and one home run in 108 at-bats.
Junior right-handed pitcher Andy Podolinski also played in the CPL, with his Columbia Blowfish squad ending the season at 12-17.
Dan DiBartolomeo won the Atlantic County Baseball League title with the Margate Hurricanes, sweeping Hammonton in a best of five series with an 8-2 win on Aug. 4. The senior third baseman’s game-winning double in the bottom of the fifth inning broke a 2-2 tie. The title is the Hurricane’s sixth in seven years and 17th since 1979.
“We just go out and play and hope the chips fall the way they did,” DiBartolomeo said to the pressofatlanticcity.com after the championship game. “We just got a couple of timely hits. It was closer than an 8-2 game. We just hit the ball and it all came together.”
Sophomore Zach Bargeron also returns to Morgantown this fall as a champion, having won the Kentucky Illinois Tennessee League title with the Tradewater Pirates on July 31. The left-handed pitcher went 2-1 this season, started seven games and finished with a 3.82 ERA.
Left-handed pitcher Jonathan Jones, a Valley League All-Star with the Winchester Royals, led his squad’s pitching staff with 48 strikeouts in 47 innings pitched. The junior concluded his year with a 2-6 record, while his team finished at 29-21, the league’s third-best record. The Royals went 2-1 against Luray, the eventual league champions, in the Valley semifinals.
T.J. Kuban, Matt Malloy, Chris Rasky and Marcus Broadwater also played in the Valley League this summer.
Kuban and Malloy, both sophomores, lost in the league’s first round with the Waynesboro Generals; the Generals concluded their season with a 23-24 record. Kuban, an infielder/outfielder, put together a .267 batting average, the team’s fifth-best mark, and accounted for 21 RBIs and 21 runs. Malloy, a catcher, averaged .224 in 13 games with 11 hits, seven RBIs and four runs.
Broadwater, a redshirt-senior right-handed pitcher, and Rasky, a redshirt-sophomore center fielder, played with the Rockbridge Rapids and saw their team go 18-26 this summer. Broadwater, a Valley League all-star, led the Rapids in saves (3) and appearances (17). He went 0-2 this season and compiled a 3.51 ERA. Rasky made 28 plate appearances and owned a .125 batting average with four hits and one double. Additionally, he owned a 1.000 field percentage, tallying 20 putouts on 23 chances.
WVU assistant coach Jake Weghorst also represented the Mountaineers in the Valley League and served in the same position with the Front Royal Cardinals. Weghorst’s team went 27-25 and fell to Luray on Aug. 12 in the Lineweaver Cup Series for the league title. The Cardinals advanced to the championship after defeating top-seeded Haymarket. They also defeated the Generals in the first round.
Sophomore Brady Wilson had a productive summer with the Watertown Wizards. The second baseman/outfielder, a New York Collegiate Baseball League all-star, led the Wizards with 43 hits and 19 runs on 141 plate appearances. Additionally, he snagged a team-best 11 stolen bases on 14 attempts. Wilson’s .305 batting average also ranked fourth on the team. He rounded out his summer stat line with 12 RBIs and five doubles.
Classmates Jared Hill and Marshall Thompson also played alongside Wilson in Watertown this season. Hill, a right-handed pitcher, pitched 12 innings and accounted for 12 strikeouts, while Thompson, a left-handed pitcher, pitched 6.2 innings in five appearances and tallied five strikeouts.
Left-handed pitcher Matt Morrone, a redshirt-senior, pitched 25 innings for the Monmouth Monarchs and was named to the Atlantic Baseball Confederation Collegiate League All-Star Team. Morrone went 2-2 this season and struck out 27 batters.
Redshirt-sophomore Clark Sambuco also played for the Monarchs, who finished the season at 22-17. Sambuco led his team in stolen bases (11) and owned a .221 batting average.
Seniors Jeremy Gum and Jonathan Hash played for the Jayhawk League’s Dodge City A’s (17-26) this summer. Gum, a catcher, ranked third on the team and 15th in the league with a .329 batting average. He also ranked second in the league with 11 doubles. Hash, a right-handed pitcher, pitched over nine innings and accounted for 12 strikeouts on his way to a 0-1 record.
Senior Andrew Berry, a right-handed pitcher, went 5-0 with the St. Cloud Riverbats of the Northwoods League. One of the team’s top starters, he owned a 2.53 ERA.
Catcher Justin McDavid competed for the Bisbee Copper Kings of the Pacific Southwest Baseball League. The senior’s squad went 30-6 this summer.
