Cards Capture Summer League Honors
August 24, 2005 | Baseball
Aug. 24, 2005
LOUISVILLE, KY - Nine members of the University of Louisville baseball team played baseball in four different collegiate wood bat leagues around the country this summer. The leagues allow college players that have completed one season of college baseball and have one season remaining to compete during the summer months.
Infielder Nick Haley and pitcher B.J. Rosenberg played for the Mat-Su Miners in the Alaska Summer League, where Haley made the All-Alaska League first team.
Haley scored a league-best 29 runs and had the fourth-highest league batting average (.329).
He was tops on the Miners in games (42), hits (51), and runs (29), and added 19 walks, four doubles and drove in 11 runs.
The Louisville Pleasure Ridge Park graduate was 11 for 19 on steals and made just three errors in the field, playing second base.
The Miners, who play their home games in Palmer, Alaska, placed second in the league with a 28-15 record.
Rosenberg, a junior, was 4-2 with a 4.50 ERA in seven starts for the Miners.
Three Cardinal players competed in the New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL). Chris Cates and Logan Johnson patrolled the middle infield for the North Adams Steeple Cats.
Cates made the midseason All-Star Team, and was 2 for 3 with an RBI and three assists in the field, on his way to being named Most Valuable Player of the New England Collegiate Baseball League All-Star Game.
At the conclusion of the season, he was named Defensive MVP of the NECBL.
Johnson played in 11 games before his summer was shortened by an injury.
Pitcher Griffin Bailey was the closer for the Newport Gulls where he posted a 2-3 record with seven saves, placing him in a tie for fourth in the league. In 18 outings, he limited opponents to a .227 batting average.
In the playoffs, Bailey helped the Gulls to the NECBL title with a pair of scoreless outings, earning saves in both appearances.
Sophomores Jorge Castillo and Zack Pitts played in the Clark Griffith League. Castillo hit .244 with 12 RBI in 31 games, playing first for the Fairfax Nationals. He committed just two errors, posting a .992 fielding percentage.
Pitts made nine starts for the Herndon Braves, posting a 4-4 record, striking out 46 in 54.1 innings to go with a 3.98 ERA.
The Braves won the CGL title in a deciding game five, thanks to a solid 7.1 innings from Pitts in which he allowed just one run.
Sophomores Derrick Alfonso and Ryne Mantooth were teammates for the M.I.N.K. League's Clarinda A's in Clarinda, Iowa. The league has teams in Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.
Alfonso played there during the first half of the season before returning to Louisville as a precautionary measure. Mantooth was a mainstay in the rotation for the A's, and pitched in the 2005 NBC World Series.
The leagues opened play in June and will wrap up the season in August. Typically the players will live with host families and are provided with summer job opportunities.
Play in the summer leagues does not effect a players' collegiate eligibility. The Cards were 32-24 last season and began play in the new Jim Patterson Stadium. They return 24 players off of the 2005 squad as they prepare for their first season in the BIG EAST.
