Reedley College Baseball Players Playing Summer Ball Cherie Smith Sports Editor
Laz Villa (on the left) receiving the PWBL MVP Bat from League Commissioner Ron Bindell on Wednesday, July 11, 2012.
The Reedley College Baseball team has several players returning for their sophomore year that played summer collegiate baseball in 2012. Summer collegiate baseball allows college baseball players to get additional at bats and pitch additional innings over the summer. One uniqueness of summer baseball is wooden bats; they are used to make it more like professional baseball. The players are able to work on weaknesses, making them better prepared for the next year. College and professional scouts come to the games to look at players to recruit and draft.
Outfielder Laz Villa and right-handed pitcher Sean Borboa, transfer from a 4- year school, played for the Fresno Cardinals, which are in the Pacific West Baseball League (PWBL). Villa made the PWBL Top 20 Players to Watch List. Both made the PWBL All-Star game for the south division. Borboa got the win and Villa received the PWBL All-Star Game MVP. Villa played in thirty-one games, forty hits, six doubles, twenty walks, thirteen RBIs, eighteen stolen bases, twenty-seven runs, and a .417 batting average. Borboa went 2-1 on the season, pitched in eleven games, started four, pitched 24.1 innings, gave up twenty-six hits, sixteen walks, twenty runs, sixteen earned runs, struck out fourteen, and had a 5.92 ERA. He also pinch ran once. Villa made the 2012 Pacific West Baseball League Second Team All- League and had the highest batting average in the league at .417. Dylan Armijo, Scott Rees, and Richard Roque played for the Alameda Merchants, also in the PWBL. Right-handed pitcher Armijo was 0-1, started the game going three innings, giving up five hits, two walks, two earned runs, struck out two, and had a 6.00 ERA. Rees, another righthanded pitcher, pitched in nine games, going 16.2 innings, gave up nineteen hits, four walks, thirteen runs, ten earned runs, struck out ten, and had a 5.40 ERA. First baseman Roque played in thirteen games, seven hits, a walk, two RBIs, five stolen bases, four runs, and a .219 batting average. Mike Gilleland was the catcher for Moose Jaw Miller Express in Canada. He played in 39 games, had 44 hits, 10 doubles, a homerun, 16 walks, 16 RBIs, 27 runs, and a .303 batting average. He also played in four playoff games, getting six hits, a walk, a RBI, a .353 batting average.
Michael Hostetler, John Karch, and Jordan Caglia all played for the Fresno Sand Gnats this summer, playing games in the central valley and on the central coast. Hostetler was their third baseman, Karch was one of the right- handed pitchers, and Caglia played the infield and catcher. Reedley College’s Baseball season will start in February 2013.