WINSTON-SALEM, NC - Members of the successful 35-win Winston-Salem State baseball team will have miniscule downtime this summer as they will spend the next three summer months playing in highly competitive collegiate summer baseball leagues across the country.
Among them are rising senior first baseman, and 2012 CIAA Player of the Year, Aaron Jones from Kernersville, NC. Jones finished the season as the Rams leading hitter, batting .460, with 91 hits, 19 doubles, six home runs and 59 RBIs. He ranked third in the NCAA in batting average and eighth in total hits. For his performance he was named to the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association 2012 Division II All-Atlantic Region Team. He will continue his summer season playing for the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters of the Northwoods Summer Collegiate League. (NWL). The 16-team NWL is comprised of teams of the top college baseball players across the nation and North America. Teams span the entire Midwest including Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota as well as Ontario, Canada.
Joining Jones in the Northwoods League is all-CIAA and 2012 Daktronics, Inc. Division II All-Atlantic Region second baseman German Reyes. Reyes was second on the Ram's 2012 CIAA Championship squad with a .434 batting average, 85 hits, 19 doubles and a team high 10 home runs to go with 55 RBIs. He ranked fifth in batting average nationally, 20th in hits and ninth in slugging %. He will be spending his summer playing for the Lakeshore Chinooks, located outside Milwaukee, WI.
Rising senior Paco Martin will be playing with the Martinsville Mustangs of the Coastal Plains League (CPL). Martin batted .406 for the year (3rd on team), with 86 hits, a team high 21 doubles, 43 RBIs and a team high 55 runs scored. Martin also ranked as the 29th hardest player to strike out in NCAA DII. He was named NCBWA All-Atlantic Region honorable mention.
Joining Martin in the CPL will be rising junior Joseph Herbert who will be pitching for the Asheboro Copperheads. Asheboro finished in 2nd place in the west division in 2011 with a 30-25 overall record. Herbert was 5-1 with a 4.06 ERA and 29 strikeouts in 57.2 innings for the Ram's squad this past season.
Other notables include rising seniors Dominique Fitzgerald and Brandon Harrison who will be playing this summer for the Virginia Marlins and Kernersville Bulldogs, respectively. Both clubs are members of the Carolina-Virginia Collegiate Summer League.