It is hard to miss Jordan Petrushka, an outfielder at Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. The sophomore is listed at 6’-6” and 225 lbs. and is a formidable sight for pitchers when he steps into the batter’s box. Petrushka, who will be suiting up for the Solano Mudcats this summer, will provide a lot of size and power–but also brings an impressive baseball resume to the table.
Petrushka, a native of Hillsborough CA, spent his high school ball days competing for IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., one of the world’s most prestigious sports development institutions. IMG Academy has served as a training site for several MLB all-stars, MVPs and World Series winners, including Joey Votto, Andrew McCutchen, and recent No. 1 overall draft pick, Brady Aiken.
His training helped Petrushka reach a very high level of play in a relatively short time. In 2019, Petrushka was selected to be a part of the Israel National Team in the 18U International Tournament Championship, held in Sweden.
A former first baseman, Petrushka now mans the outfield for Holy Cross, a member of the NCAA DI Patriot League.
With most rosters loaded with talent from the West Coast and Midwest, Petrushka will be a CCL player who suits up collegiately in the Northeast. Petrushka hopes to continue his success and further advance his already impressive baseball career with Solano this summer, as he looks to be a fixture for the Mudcats in the outfield and in the middle of the order. Follow along with the future Mudcat here, and stay up to date on all things Mudcats at solanomudcats.org.
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It would be hard to ask RJ Schreck to have a better first game back coming off a pandemic. The junior outfielder for Duke lit up the stat sheet on opening day against Coastal Carolina, posting three hits in four at bats including a double, three runs batted in and a run scored in the 12-4 Blue Devil win. He has hardly lost a step in the months since. Out of the 27 games he has appeared in, 10 were multi-hit efforts, including two more three-hit games against Boston College and Notre Dame.
Schreck does it all at the plate for Duke, leading in most offensive categories. He leads the team in batting average (.327), OPS (.975) home runs (6) and runs batted in (22). In a three-game series against Boston College from 2/26-2/28, Schreck was 7-13 with 8 RBI and a home run. Adding to his already impressive offensive resume, he has been getting it done on the bases for the Blue Devils, stealing seven bases in as many attempts, good enough for second on the team, and establishing himself as one of the most impressive offensive players in the ACC.
Before Duke, the LA native was a 2018 graduate of Harvard-Westlake High School, where he was named to the All-CIF First Team in 2017, and First Team All-State after his senior season in 2018. This is exciting to see for fans of the Arroyo Seco Saints, as he travels back west for the summer of 2021, hoping to continue his offensive dominance.
Follow along with the future Saints outfielder here, and stay up to date on all things Saints at arroyosecosaints.com.
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Brendan Bobo, a 2020 graduate of Harbor High School in Santa Cruz, had built himself quite the impressive prep resume before heading down south to Cal State Fullerton. The four-time letter winner and two-time team MVP was also a standout on the football field and basketball court for the HHS Pirates. He was just getting started with his senior season before the COVID-19 pandemic forced an early end to his high school baseball career. He has been making the most of every opportunity since.
The freshman infielder spent the beginning of the season in a battle for playing time but has come on strong as of late–a great sign for Fullerton, who still have hopes for a Big West Conference title. Bobo is batting a stellar .348 in conference play, along with a .541 conference on-base percentage. The Titans currently sit in 3rd place in the Big West, with only UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara ahead of them in the standings.
Bobo has played a significant role in Fullerton’s success in conference play, who’s breakout game came against the first-place Gauchos of Santa Barbara on March 21. Bobo hit his first collegiate home run, a two-run shot in the second inning, and added two walks and another run later on to keep Fullerton on the right side of the 10-9 thriller to even the series at two games apiece. Most recently, Bobo had another home run and three runs batted in during an April 16 bout against UC Davis.
Bobo will try to keep his hot streak at the plate alive for the rest of the year, as Fullerton makes a run for Big West supremacy, and into the summer when he will be suiting up for the CCL’s Conejo Oaks. Follow the future Oaks infielder here, and stay up to date on all things Oaks at oaksbaseball.org.
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The University of Tennessee’s Kyle Booker, a talented outfielder for the Volunteers and future member of the Orange County Riptide, had himself a night in a recent 9-2 victory over Western Carolina at Lindsey Nelson Stadium in Knoxville. In the win, Booker tallied five total bases thanks to three runs scored plus two hits. “The Mississippi native also hit his first-career home run and tied a career high with three RBI on the night. Booker’s solo homer in the third inning tied the game and his two-run single in the fourth put the Vols up for good,” noted utsports.com.
Tennessee, now 24-5 and ranked No. 4 in the nation by USA Today and second in the SEC East behind No. 1 ranked Vanderbilt, likes what they see in the freshman Booker. “Kyle’s skill-set is pretty extraordinary. He’s an SEC-level player right now strength-wise and speed-wise,” commented head coach Tony Vitello in a postgame press conference.
Others are taking notice of the smooth swinger from the left side. D1Baseball.com placed Booker on its 2021 SEC Impact Freshman List.
Before arriving at UT, Booker helped lead Mississippi’s Desoto Central High School to not one, but two state championships. Perfect Game ranked Booker a Top 10 player in the state and one of the top outfielders (No. 38) in the nation. Twice Booker was named a Preseason Underclass All-America selection.
Excelling in baseball is nothing new for the Booker family. Kyle’s father, Kevin, was drafted in the 11th Round of the 1992 MLB Draft by the Chicago Cubs. He would go on to play six seasons of professional baseball.
Riptide general manager, Moe Geoghegan, is excited to add Kyle to the roster. “He’s just a freshman but making an impact for Top 10 team in the nation,” said Geoghegan. “CCL and Riptide fans are in for a real treat this summer—he’s a future big-time talent.”
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Photo credit – utsports.com
Hayde Key, a freshman pitcher from Texas Tech University and future Santa Barbara Forester, already knows a thing or two about playing in big moments.
With a 19-4 overall record, the 2021 Texas Tech team has been consistently recognized as one of the top programs in the nation. The most recent poll from BaseballAmerica.com has the Red Raiders coming in at No. 4. Topping that list is Arkansas, who took on Texas Tech on opening night, the first game back for each team after the COVID-19 hiatus. This also happened to be the college debut for Key, who head coach Tim Tadlock trusted to preserve a 1-run lead in the 8th inning.
Key worked through a scoreless 8th frame with two strikeouts. Texas Tech knew they had something special in Key. He has been consistently solid out of the bullpen, tied for third on the team in appearances, and striking out 12 batters over 8.2 innings. His best outing came on March 5 against Texas State where he posted three scoreless innings allowing just one hit and striking out five.
It should not come as a surprise that Key is prepared to perform in big moments. His great grandfather was a 13-year MLB veteran, and he has other family members with professional baseball experience. Turning in a 13-2 record with a 1.17 ERA his senior year at Ridge Point High School earned him First Team All-State honors in Texas, and the number 33-ranked overall prospect in the state out of high school. Key will be taking these credentials west this summer to compete with the Santa Barbara Foresters.Follow along with the future Forester pitcher here.
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Photo credit – Gregg Ellman, Texas Tech Athletics
Athletes who play for the Orange County Riptide must fulfill all the typical criteria expected of a college baseball player, ranging from throwing velocity to batting technique. But the Riptide also requires another characteristic of players — the desire to play at the professional level.
“Our big thing is we only recruit players that still have the dream,” said Moe Geoghegan, General Manager of the Riptide. “If a kid’s like, ‘I don’t really care about a future in baseball, I’m just playing through my college years,’ he’s probably not gonna fit in our organization.”
The Riptide’s desire for its players to aim higher speaks to the emphasis it puts not only on its winning record, but also on individual development and improvement for athletes’ future careers.
Promoting that mentality has led to success for the Riptide, allowing it to make waves in the CCL playoffs and compete with any summer baseball team on the West Coast. While most sports teams take years to build a winning culture and win a championship, and many never accomplish those feats at all, the CCL’s Orange County Riptide achieved both objectives in just three seasons.
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Geoghegan’s coaching career got off to an atypical start when he was a baseball player at Glendale Community College. Following their first season of college ball in 1996, Geoghegan and his teammates decided to put together a roster of GCC athletes and players they knew from high school. They titled themselves the Scorpions.
In 2000, Geoghegan moved the Scorpions to a new home in Orange County, after which they became an official member of the Western Baseball Association and won a league championship in their first season. The Scorpions flourished, besting some of best teams on the West Coast and winning the Western Regional Tournament in 2001.
After back to back NBC World Series trips and having 18 players who were drafted, five of whom made it to the major leagues, Geoghegan decided to step away from coaching and baseball to focus on personal life and priorities.
He considered bringing his former summer club back every few years during his extended hiatus away from the dugout, but was hesitant to pull the trigger.
In 2015, Geoghegan knew it was time to return to baseball. Though he had most recently served as a coach, he chose instead to become general manager of his new team, the Orange County Riptide.
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Geoghegan went into his first years as GM with a plan in place, but the Riptide’s first two seasons were as tenuous as the team’s namesake.
The franchise spent its inaugural season as a member of the Southern California Collegiate Baseball League, sporting a lineup of mainly Division II and NAIA players.
The Riptide went on a win streak as the summer progressed, which earned them a spot in the playoffs and later the Championship series. Despite their newly found success, the Riptide had a tough loss in three games to Palm Springs in the Championship.
“We had champagne on ice and everything and just couldn’t wrap it up,” Geoghegan said. “It was a great series, it was a tight series, it was a great experience.”
While the loss was difficult to accept, Geoghegan realized that he needed to move his team in a new direction and into another league. The Riptide made the jump to the CCL in 2016 with the vocal support of Foresters head coach Bill Pintard and former CCL Commissioner Pat Burns.
After making the switch, Geoghegan recruited several Division I players for his 2016 roster, but still found that the team did not progress as he had hoped after off-field issues bled into on-field performance.
“‘16 was a learning experience,” Geoghegan said. “We took our lumps.”
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After two up-and-down seasons in the books, Geoghegan decided it was time for a change within the Riptide organization following its 2016 campaign.
His first shake-up came in October when Tommy Bell, a player on the 2016 team, recommended Tyger Pederson as a candidate for the Riptide’s head coach opening.
Pederson, a former minor leaguer and University of the Pacific alum, immediately introduced a new coaching philosophy to the club and was chosen to lead the team. Geoghegan was initially unsure about the Riptide’s new way of doing things, but quickly realized what a difference it made in the club’s performance.
“Early on, I was skeptical about some of the way he was running the offense and stuff,” Geoghegan said, “but I was completely dead wrong.”
With a new head coach in place, Geoghegan set off to build his 2017 team. He took a more direct approach to recruiting than he had in previous seasons and began scouting early, building on his existing relationships with coaches at D1 Universities and other programs across the country.
One of Geoghegan’s first targets was the University of Arkansas. Although he initially targeted the Razorbacks’ starting shortstop, who signed but ended up missing the summer due to academics, Geoghegan also included Dominic Fletcher as part of the package. Fletcher was from Orange County and a was highly recruited Freshman Outfielder who later became the CCL’s 2017 Most Valuable Player and the 75th-overall draft selection of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Another key addition to the team was Delta Junior College freshman Beau Philip, who had the strong backing of Pederson. Phillips was later drafted in the second round by the Atlanta Braves in 2019.
The Riptide also had a strong rotation and bullpen.
With so much talent on one team, the Riptide practically found it harder to lose than to win.
“Some of the statistics were just crazy,” Geoghegan said. “We lost 11 games. We lost seven of those 11 losses by one run. We never lost the game by more than three runs all summer. I mean, we were in every single game, which is crazy.”
As the summer went on, the Riptide never lost momentum despite an accumulation of injuries and an opt-out from one of the team’s most important players. The team forged on with a “next guy up” mentality and a coach who “made every right move,” Geoghegan said.
The Riptide sailed into the playoffs with a 32-11 record, the best in the CCL South. The team went on to beat the Healdsburg Prune Packers in the Championship game to take home the 2017 Championship title.
Geoghegan was also awarded the CCL’s 2017 General Manager of the Year Award.
“2017 was the dream season,” Geoghegan said. “That’s your one team that comes along once in a lifetime.”
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After having a “perfect summer in 2017” and winning a championship so quickly, Geoghegan admits he had his doubts about the team’s mission going forward.
“And then 2018 rolls in, you know, and how do you duplicate it?” he reflected.
The Riptide got off to a slow start in 2018, but won its final two regular season games on walkoff home runs and earned a spot in the playoffs. The team even managed to find its way back to the 2018 CCL Championship after struggling to develop a consistent strategy and lineup all season, but lost 6-2 to the Conejo Oaks.
However, Geoghegan was satisfied with simply making a second consecutive Championship appearance and set his sights on new goals for the franchise. One of those objectives was finding a new field, and in 2019, the team found a new home base at the Great Park in Irvine.
“That’s, I think, going to be the move that changes our organization forever,” Geoghegan said. “It has just opened up so many opportunities.”
He hopes to take full advantage of the new space once pandemic restrictions are eased and teams can allow fans into their facilities again. While the 2020 season was canceled for health and safety reasons, Geoghegan considers it a “blessing in disguise” since the organization will now have time to fully prepare for what it wants to do at the Great Park.
Geoghegan also brought on Director of Baseball Operations Dave Lamm, Assistant General Manager Tim Brown and a full Executive Board to help grow the team and set the stage for future success. The Riptide’s internship program has expanded as well, helping with communications, operations and other parts of managing the club.
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Geoghegan is looking forward to getting Riptide players back on the field after a nearly two year-long hiatus from CCL competition in Southern California. Geoghegan is particularly excited about the roster he constructed for this season, including players from Georgia, Arkansas, Texas, Colorado, Alabama and Illinois — the highest number of out-of-state athletes he’s ever had.
“‘17 was a really good team, but this probably is the most exciting team,” Geoghegan said. “We’ll see what happens when they come together, but I’m pretty excited about the directions we’re going in.”
Regardless of how the pandemic and other factors impact baseball in 2021, Geoghegan hopes to continue working toward the Riptide’s three central goals.
“Number one, we want to develop our players on and off the field,” Geoghegan said. “Number two, we want to send them back healthy, safe, and hopefully better than they were when they came. And number three, we’d like to see them go on to play some sort of professional baseball.”
Geoghegan also wants the organization as a whole to continue improving, creating partnerships at universities around the country and making the Riptide a national name.
“I feel like people in this league know the Riptide are pretty good on the field, we’re just trying to equal that off the field with operations,” Geoghegan said. “We’re always trying to expand with schools to try to get more pipelines and stability. But we want to be one of the teams that carries the flag for the league.”
Is there a better mix than college baseball and golf?
This spring, the California Collegiate League will host golf outings in two different parts of the state. The CCL North Division will play at the picturesque Chardonnay Golf Club in Napa Valley on Sunday, April 25, while the CCL South Division will hit the links on Monday, May 24, at the scenic Moorpark Country Club. Golf Digest has ranked both courses as “Best Places to Play.”
Registration is now open for both events:
Enjoy pre-tournament and on-course contests, as well as a raffle in the North Division and silent and live auctions in the South Division. Food will be provided along with on-course beverages. All participants will receive a CCL Richardson trucker hat and a custom-designed CCL golf towel. Winners of the tournaments and on-course contests will receive specially-designed trophy bats from Trinity Bat Co.
The tournament benefits all ten California Collegiate League teams.
For questions, contact:
Over a year into his tenure as head coach of the Walnut Creek Crawdads, Brant Cummings awaits his first game in the dugout of the team’s home field at St. Mary’s College.
The wait for the Crawdads organization to return to play has been even longer — after not fielding a team in 2019 as part of a rebuild, college summer baseball has been missing from Walnut Creek for some time.
With nearly three years between seasons, Cummings and the Crawdads have had more than enough time to consider who they want their players to be not just on the field, but also as people. They plan to continue that focus as they head into their 2021 campaign, focusing on helping players become better people and preparing them for life after baseball.
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Cummings’ baseball journey began like many others, with a set of baseball cards gifted to him by his mother. Baseball cards turned into televised baseball games, which turned into professional ball games across the Bay Area.
Cummings tried his hand at playing baseball as well, taking part in the game at the youth league, high school and community college levels. At Albany High School, he played under the tutelage of John Delts, whom he credits with the development of his coaching philosophy when he moved from the diamond to the dugout.
His coaching career began not long after he decided to stop playing, and he landed his first gig coaching age 16-18 and 13-15 teams in North Oakland. Gaining that experience led to stints with Bishop O’Dowd High School, Laney College, Sierra College and Diablo Valley College.
Cummings describes his years as an assistant coach at Laney under head coach Rob Wilson as one of the best baseball experiences he’s had throughout his career.
“I learned a lot from that guy on how to organize your day, how to communicate with the kids,” Cummings said. “One of the things he focused heavily on was the lecture aspect of the teaching process, how to explain these guys, this is why we do it, this is how we do it.”
Cummings got his first taste of summer ball when Wilson tasked him with finding summer placements for players on the team. When he was unable to find spots for a number of athletes, Cummings formed his own summer team of Laney players and found games for them throughout the summer season.
Though the Laney team played only seven games during its first summer stint, Cummings gradually found more games for them to play every year — graduating to 22, 40 and as many as 50 games.
Cummings and the players jokingly called the practice “barnstorming the Bay Area” because they would play “anyone and everyone” willing to face them in Northern California.
“It was a real joy to coach those kids and go out and go places, especially when we had the opportunity to play in places where there were crowds, where most of our kids, they weren’t accustomed to that,” Cummings said.
After his years running summer ball at Laney, Cummings moved on to a new summer opportunity with the Folsom Pioneers. Cummings sought the advice of baseball minds around the Bay, including University of San Francisco assistant coach Troy Nakamura, to improve his summer recruiting skills. He was able to gradually shift his roster to include more Division I players, having as much as 75% of the roster from DI programs.
Cummings, who had more than made a name for himself in the San Francisco baseball community at that stage of his career, next took a position coaching the Neptune Beach Pearl. The Pearl’s rosters boasted future major league talent such as Kyle Barraclough and Ryan Cordell, both of whom he coached.
Just four seasons later, Cummings’ Pearl beat the Los Angeles Brewers to take home the 2015 CCL Championship.
“That weekend was some of the most unbelievable stuff, you couldn’t write this for a script,” Cummings said. “You could get Scorsese, you couldn’t get any of these wonderful writers to create some of the nonsense that occurred that weekend, that led to the championship, but that was a great experience, I think, for the kids, and they were able to dogpile it and regain and walk out of town with the trophy.”
After two more seasons, the Pearl chose to disband in 2017. Cummings subsequently took the 2018 season off and spent time away from the ballpark.
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Cummings got a chance to return to coaching in 2019 when the Crawdads organization approached him about its desire to field a team again the following year. Walnut Creek hoped Cummings would accept the team’s head coaching position, but still had details to hammer out before it could announce an official return.
The primary issue stalling the Crawdads’ homecoming was lack of available field space in the baseball-saturated Bay Area. However, the Crawdads got a stroke of luck when St. Mary’s College head coach Greg Moore approached Cummings about getting a college ball team into SMC’s field for the summer, later allowing the University and team to come to a mutually beneficial agreement.
As soon as the two came to a consensus in August 2019, Cummings got right to work assembling a 2020 roster.
Nevertheless, the team’s plans came to a screeching halt when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the sports industry. Although the Crawdads’ 2021 season was canceled for health and safety purposes, Cummings was still glad to be back among baseball peers.
“Leading up to the pandemic and all of those things, I thought it went well, I was able to tap into some of my resources again and put together what I hoped would be a competitive roster,” Cummings said. “And unfortunately we weren’t able to play, but it felt good to be around the guys that I competed against on the field and worked with in the meetings and asked and so on, really enjoy the people that I haven’t had an opportunity to work with in this league.”
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Cummings’ patience and attitude toward the Crawdads’ unfortunate situation is just one example of the levelheadedness and dedication he’s developed a reputation for in the baseball industry.
“Some people refer to it as old school,” Cummings said. “I’m not quite necessarily sure what that means versus new school, but I set guidelines and I hold the kids accountable and I tell them as much as I can how much I care and love them, but also make sure that they stick to whatever the plans are for themselves and for the team, because they’re going to be faced with guidelines and accountability for the rest of their lives.”
As a team-oriented leader, Cummings ensures that players remain accountable not only to themselves and their own improvement goals, but also the plans and aims of the team — “We’ll make this useful for everyone, but let’s make sure we stick to our plan,” Cummings said.
Cummings has also become known among college coaches for his willingness to help accomplish the goals of each coach for their players.
“So, we’re here to facilitate whatever their needs, whether it’s learning a new pitch, learning a new position,” Cummings said. “Put in specific situations, we try to do that as best we can for the needs of the coaches.”
“And that creates trust, and that’s very, very important because at the end of the day, if they trust you, they’ll do business with you. If they don’t, they won’t.”
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Another quality Cummings and the entire Walnut Creek organization have made their name for is their commitment to the personal development of athletes away from the diamond.
One way the Crawdads have done so is to partner with More Than A Game, a nonprofit aimed at bringing baseball to communities across North and South America.
More Than A Game was created by Marshall Murray, one of the Crawdads’ founders, in 2010 after he spent years traveling to many different locations as part of Athletes in Action.
“They traveled to various locations around the world and were involved in communities in South America, and a couple other locations that he thought he would definitely like to create a team where they do something very similar, like go out, play baseball and do all those things to enhance their abilities as players, but along with that, the opportunity to see and visit other locations in the world, and to help people that are probably in a different situation than than they are,” Cummings said.
Sawyer Gieseke, a former Crawdads player, is one of many people involved with the nonprofit.
“What we do is we bring baseball to underprivileged communities all over the world, create scholarship opportunities for different countries that also provide more programs,” Gieseke said. “[Crawdads players] come out and they volunteer in the program.”
Players help lead clinics for young athletes looking to learn more about the sport, in addition to working on field construction projects and participating in other community events.
Athletes involved with the foundation value the opportunity to bring baseball to numerous people, spreading the joy of the game to those who have not previously had a chance to play the sport with adequate equipment, facilities and resources.
Whether through More Than A Game or the Crawdads team itself, Cummings hopes Crawdads athletes will take away more from their time in Walnut Creek than just new baseball skills.
“I love being on the field, and love helping young people become not just better players, but better human beings, and that’s one of the driving forces for me is to help in my small way, tomorrow’s leaders,” Cummings said. “These are tomorrow’s police officers, physicians, insurance, sales, fathers, uncles, they are the people we see in the community.”
“They learn valuable life lessons. That’s the number one for me, and if they get better as baseball players… that’s great, but I want them to be [as] terrific human beings as possible.”
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To learn more about More Than A Game and find out how you can contribute, please visit morethanagame.org
Vincent Martinez’s stock continues to rise in his third year on the Stanford roster. The junior catcher from San Marcos, Calif. has started eight of Stanford’s games behind the plate, and has proven to be one of the team’s most consistent hitters to open the season. His 13 hits in 33 at-bats put him atop the team in batting average (.394) and second on the team with an OPS of 1.141. This includes a huge four-hit day in a high-scoring win against the University of San Francisco on March 7, a game where Martinez hit his first career home run. He tacked on his second and third career homers a week later against UC Irvine.
Martinez has been a tremendous asset to Stanford, making key contributions to the team as they opened their 2021 campaign with a 10-2 record. Martinez and Stanford’s sights are set on a PAC-12 championship this year, and after the dust settles, he will be trading in the Cardinal jersey for the San Luis Obispo Blues’ uniform hoping to continue his high-level of play. Catch Martinez and the rest of the Blues all summer at picturesque Sinsheimer Field in San Luis Obispo. Follow along with the future Blues’ catcher here.
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To say Jason Brandow got off to a hot start for Cal State Fullerton would be an understatement. Through the early weeks of the 2021 campaign, Brandow led the storied baseball program in several offensive categories, including at-bats, hits, runs, home runs, total bases, and extra base hits. Brandow recorded three-hit games in two contests, including a 3-for-3 effort with two doubles against the University of Utah on February 21, and a 3-for-5 game against San Diego a week later. In the second inning of that contest against San Diego, he hit his first home run of 2021– the front end of back-to-back shots by Brandow and another future CCL player Austin Schell, en-route to a 5-1 Titan victory.
The Northern California native will be close to home this summer as he takes on the CCL North schedule as a part of the Lincoln Potters. Follow along with the future Potters’ catcher here.
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