June 21, 2010
MALIBU, Calif. - Twenty-one Pepperdine baseball players have been spread across 10 summer leagues stretching from Massachusetts to Hawai'i in an effort to maintain and sharpen their respective skill sets in preparation for next season.
Many of the leagues and teams have already started their campaigns and are within their second or third week of competition, including the Chatham Anglers of the Cape Cod Baseball League. The Angler roster features a pair of Pepperdine juniors in Brian Humphries (El Cajon, Calif./Granite Hills HS) Aaron Gates (Villa Park, Calif./Orange Lutheran HS), who currently owns a 1.93 ERA through 4.2 innings pitched.
Playing in the same vicinity of his teammates, but further up the coast in Lynn, Massachusetts, is sophomore Daniel Patrick (Jupiter, Fla./Jupiter HS) who is with the North Shore Navigators of the New England Collegiate Baseball League. Also stationed in the Northeast is sophomore first baseman Sam Meyer (Los Altos, Calif./St. Francis HS) who's part of Oneonta Outlaws' (NYCBL) roster.
Down the Atlantic shoreline in Maryland are sophomores Ranny Lowe (Granada Hills, Calif./Notre Dame HS) and Brian McIlhenny (Scottsdale, Ariz./Brophy College Preparatory), who are playing for the Rockville Express of the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League. Lowe is hitting .300 through six games and McIlhenny struck out all three batters he faced in his first relief appearance.
The Northwoods League, which covers Wisconsin and Minnesota, is represented by five Waves: juniors Chris Amezquita (La Mirada, Calif./Servite HS) and Nate Johnson (Camarillo, Calif./Camarillo HS) and sophomores Jordan Luvisi (Scottsdale, Ariz./Notre Dame Preparatory), Alex Najera (Anaheim Hills, Calif./Canyon HS) and Joe Sever (San Jose, Calif./Bellarmine College Preparatory).
Johnson and Sever have been placed together in Willmar, Minnesota with a first-year Stingers club that's currently a game over .500 at 9-8, while Amezquita and Luvisi are part of a Wisconsin Woodchuck squad that's a half game out of first place in the South Division at 11-7. Both Amezquita and Johnson have already slammed home runs.
Najera's pitched 10.1 innings for the 10-7 La Crosse Loggers and sports a 3.48 ERA.
The largest contingency of Waves this summer can be found in Danville, Illinois, playing for the Dans of the Prospect League. Junior Tyler Brubaker (Valencia, Calif./Saugus HS), senior Keven Inman (Bakersfield, Calif./Garces HS) and redshirt junior Miles Silverstein (Bell Canyon, Calif./Calabasas HS) are all competing in the town of 33,000 located on the Indiana border, while junior Cody Yount (Paradise Valley, Calif./Chaparral HS) is playing two hours west for the Springfield Sliders.
Ironically, Yount's uncle, Baseball Hall of Famer Robin Yount, was born in Danville before his family moved to southern California.
Deep in the heart of the Texas League are senior Torrey Jacoby (Scottsdale, Ariz./Notre Dame Preparatory), redshirt sophomore Ricky Villarreal (Edinburg, Texas/Edinburg HS). Jacoby is with the Victoria Generals and Villarreal is with the Texas Tomcats, for whom he is 1-0 with a 3.00 ERA.
Senior Emanuel Sifuentes (La Puente, Calif./Bishop Amat HS), and sophomores Nicholas Bozeman (Burbank, Calif./Burroughs HS), Mike Hole (Vancouver, B.C./St. George's School) and Zach Vincej (Saugus, Calif./Saugus HS) are all competing on the West Coast; however, Sifuentes is the lone one based in the lower 48 states. He will begin playing for the San Diego Waves of the National Baseball Congress in approximately two weeks.
Vincej is playing in the Alaska Baseball League for the second straight summer and is currently hitting .282 with six RBI for the Anchorage Bucs.
Bozeman and Hole have been assigned to the Hawai'i Collegiate Baseball League, which is just three games into its season. Hole is playing for the Hawai'i Aliis and Bozeman is with the Waikiki Surfers.
