Louisville Baseball Taking Advantage of Limited Summer Options
There might be limited summer league options for collegiate baseball players across the nation to participate in this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but that isn't stopping a large contingent of the University of Louisville Baseball program from preparing for the next season.
21 Cardinals - over half of the returning players from the shortened 2019 season - are taking part in four different summer leagues prior to reconvening on campus later this year for the start of fall ball. With many of the more prestigious leagues having been altered or outright canceled, such as the Cape Cod & Perfect Game leagues, many of the Cards partaking in summer ball are doing so in the region.
Most of them are just a two hour drive to the north, as you can find 13 Louisville Baseball players competing at the Grand Park Summer League held in Indianapolis.
Two teams in this league have a heavy Louisville presence; as the "Local Legends" feature INF/OF Cameron Masterman, OF Chris Seng, INF/RHP Jared Poland and INF Tim Borden, while the "Snapping Turtles" have LHP Carter Lohman, RHP Duncan Hall, RHP Jack Perkins and OF Tyeler Hawkins. Another two teams sport a pair of Cards; with C/1B Dalton Rushing & LHP Michael Prosecky competing for "The A-Team", and C Henry Davis & RHP Ryan Hawks doing so for the "Tropics". Finally to wrap up the Louisville action in the Hoosier State, we have LHP Michael Kirian as the lone Card for the "Turf Monsters".
Louisville has had a significant impact on the league, with seven of the thirteen participating Cardinals making their way to the either roster of the league's All-Star Game. Blue Team will have Rushing, Poland and Prosecky competing against Red Team's Davis, Perkins, Hawks and Borden. The game is scheduled to take place on July 16 at Victory Field in downtown Indianapolis.
But there's still plenty of action going on in our own backyard. In the newly-formed Louisville Summer Collegiate League: LHP Adam Elliott & C/INF Ben Metzinger are on the "Redbirds" (Team 4), while LHP Evan Webster competes for Team 1 and LHP Garrett Schmeltz does so for Team 5. Games are being held at Trinity Stadium (Voll Field) on St. Matthews until the end of July, and the schedule can be found here.
While many of the top summer leagues decided to wait until 2021 to resume action, the Northwoods League was able to return under amended circumstances. As a result, four Cards were able to join: OF Levi Usher, LHP Tate Kuehner, RHP Glenn Albanese and OF Chris Seng double-dipping. Both Outfielders are performing well, as Usher has a .417 batting average in sox games while Seng has a .280 average over nine games. Albanese has been lights out, sporting an ERA of zero in two appearances and striking out 17 in 7.0 innings. Kuehner has an ERA of 6.75 over two outings, but posted 4.0 solid innings back on July 10.
Finally we have INF/OF Lucas Dunn, who is competing with the Winter Garden Squeeze down in the Florida League. The native Floridian has performed well post-injury, as he has gone 7-17 in seven games with three home runs and seven RBI. His best performance came on July 9 against the Leesburg Storm, where he hit a solo home run & a grand slam to finish the day with five RBI.
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