The draft and other thoughts

Sitting through two days of the draft will make you stop and realize how many good players there are in the world of high school and college baseball. Thus year alone, there were 63 players selected from NCAA Division II schools. Out of those 63 players, North Georgia faced eight of those players (albeit four were from the Peach Belt Conference). The Saints played Delta State University, who had two players drafted, but they did not face 11th round pick Brett Durand (third in Division II with 117 strikeouts this past season). The Statesmen also had Jareck West, an outfielder, drafted in 25th round by the Oakland A's. In two games against North Georgia, West was 3-for-7 at Paterson Field. The other two non-conference players that the Saints faced were James Pruitt (23rd round by Oakland) of the University of Montevallo and Jordan Towns (25th round by LAA Angels) of the University of West Georgia. Pruitt went 1-for-2 against North Georgia, while Towns did not toe the rubber in either of the two losses to the Saints. The four players from the conference that the Saints faced this season were Andrew Reichard (13th round by San Francisco) and Michael Antonini (18th round by New York Mets) of GCSU, Dylan Owen (20th round by New York Mets) Francis Marion and Jeremy Horst (21st round by Cincinnati) of Armstrong Atlantic.

In other news, if there have been any recent articles featuring alumni of the North Georgia College & State University athletic department, please feel free to send those stories and links to the Sports Information Office and we will post those on our alumni site.

Also, all schedules have been posted (with the exception of tennis), and we will host our first Fan Day for any sport on August 11 as we have Soccer Fan Appreciation Day from 11:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. at the soccer complex. Look to the website for more information.