College sluggers with familiar names like Nick Kurtz (Wake Forest), Jack Carianone (Florida), Charlie Condon (Georgia), and Tommy White (LSU) will be at the top of MLB draft boards in early 2024. There are many people.
But three weeks later, the nation's home run king was a 5-foot-9 freshman outfielder at Georgia Tech. Drew Burress broke into college baseball by hitting two home runs in the Yellow Jackets' season opener against Radford, and became an All-American after setting a school record with four home runs in a 10-0 win over Georgia State last Wednesday. became the headline.
Burress has nine home runs, a .419 batting average, 20 RBIs, and 13 RBIs through 10 games.
Burress, a graduate of Houston County High School in Georgia, was ranked No. 18 in the nation by Perfect Game magazine and was seen as a promising prospect, but he was not selected in the 2023 MLB Draft because he was aiming to attend college.
Drew Burress hits Georgia Tech's single-game record with four home runs 🤯 pic.twitter.com/3OytADp1hb
— Baseball Brothers (@BaseballBros) February 28, 2024
Around the horn
Burress' early season performance made Condon the best college hitter in Georgia, and perhaps in the nation. The redshirt sophomore is batting .568 with eight home runs and 15 RBIs. He also hit five doubles and one triple, posting an impressive slugging percentage of 1.273.
The Bulldogs took two games from Georgia Tech over the weekend and are 10-1 under first-year coach Wes Johnson. Friday's game was suspended with Georgia leading 9-3 and is scheduled to resume at a later date.
It's still early, but Duke University's Jonathan Santucci is solidifying his position as a potential first-round pick in the 2024 MLB Draft. The junior left-hander has yet to allow an earned run or an extra base hit in 17 innings in starts against Indiana, Northwestern and Akron. He has 31 strikeouts, seven walks, and 10 hits (.169 against batting average).
Santucci's second season was interrupted by a broken elbow three weeks into the ACC schedule. He was 2-2 with a 4.30 ERA and 50 strikeouts in 29 1/3 innings in seven starts.
Next Friday, Santucci will face Wake Forest ace Josh Hartl in a big early-season ACC showdown.
LSU moved Luke Holman to the Friday night role this week in the Tigers' 6-3 win over Texas in front of a raucous crowd of 24,927 at Minute Maid Park in Houston. Luke Holman, a transfer from Alabama, allowed only three hits in 5 2/3 scoreless innings.
Holman did not allow an earned run until the 18th inning, allowing only eight hits, 30 strikeouts, and two walks. Former UCLA transfer Thatcher Hurd, who started the season as the starting pitcher on Friday, allowed seven hits and two earned runs over five innings in Sunday's 10-5 win over Texas State.
Florida secured the series victory with an 8-4 victory over Miami on Sunday in Coral Gables. The best news for the Gators is that Carianone, in his second start of the season, had 11 strikeouts and allowed just three hits in six scoreless innings.
Cuggs also did his job at the plate, going 3-for-5 and hitting his fourth home run of the season. Colby Shelton, a transfer from the University of Alabama, hit two home runs, earned a team-high five and batted .325.
It's all about U(F) 🐊🙌 pic.twitter.com/yhNTm4wj9v
— Florida Gators Baseball (@GatorsBB) March 3, 2024
In perhaps the best rivalry in college baseball, Clemson won back-to-back games against South Carolina. The Tigers won 5-4 in 12 innings on Saturday at Segura Park in Columbia (home of the Carolina League's Columbia Fireflies) and 5-4 on Sunday at Doug Kingsmore Stadium in Clemson. Friday's game at Founders Park in Columbia was postponed due to weather.
The Tigers, 9-1 in coach Erik Bakich's second season, host Kansas State on Wednesday in an interesting midweek matchup.
UCF was a surprise early in the season. The Knights took two of three games from rival South Florida over the weekend in Orlando, improving to 8-1. They also have two impressive midweek road wins over Miami and FAU.
On Sunday, Dom Stagliano, Kyle Kramer and Chase Sentara combined for just two hits in a 1-0 win over the Bulls. Stagliano, making his first start this year, pitched 9 1/3 innings and had 13 strikeouts, allowing only three hits and one earned run.
UCF heads to Gainesville on Wednesday to take on Florida, then jumps into Big 12 play with a trip to Oklahoma next weekend.
USC exceeded expectations in 2023 under first-year coach Andy Stankiewicz, going 17-13 in the Pac-12 and falling one game short of winning its first division since 2015.
The second year doesn't go well. The Trojans dropped three games (two to TCU and one to Texas A&M) over the weekend at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, and are now 2-8. Outfielder Austin Austin, who was named preseason All-Pac-12 and led the nation with 14 triples in 2023, is batting .150 with only one extra-base hit.
The Trojans will not have a true home park this year as a new stadium is being built on campus. Home games will be played at OC Great Park in Irvine, Loyola Marymount's Page Stadium, and UC Irvine's Cicerone Field.
Florida State improved to 10-0 with three wins at the First Pitch Invitational in Greenville, South Carolina. The Seminoles, named one of the nation's most improved teams in 2024 by multiple coaches, defeated Illinois (13-7), Michigan State (11-2) and Western Michigan (8-3). .
Although FSU has only beaten one team (Western Michigan is 6-5), this is still an encouraging start to the second season under coach Link Jarrett.
Sophomore third baseman Cam Smith, as expected, became the star of the Noles' offense. He has a batting average of .478 with two home runs and 12 RBIs. On the mound, sophomore left-hander Jamie Arnold went 3-0, pitching 17 innings and allowing no earned runs.
The Noles join TCU (12-0), Texas A&M (11-0), Louisiana Tech (11-0) and UC Irvine (9-0) as the nation's undefeated teams through three weeks. It is one of five teams. Despite some strange quirks in its early-season schedule, TCU has already played five teams in the Pac-12 and has eight wins against the soon-to-be defunct league.
And finally
• Arkansas State's Hagen Smith followed up his great performance against Oregon State (six scoreless innings, 17 strikeouts) with one hit in six innings in a 5-1 win over Murray State on Friday night. He allowed 12 strikeouts and recorded 12 strikeouts. Smith allowed a home run to leadoff batter Drew Vogel, but retired 18 of the next 19 batters (12 strikeouts).
• Speaking of strikeouts: Winthrop senior right-hander Riley Huge went 8-0 in Maine on Saturday, striking out 20 batters in 7 2/3 innings, allowing one earned run and one hit. did. Huge leads the nation with 37 strikeouts.
• Wake Forest's lineup received a nice boost from Ball State transfer Adam Tellier. While Kurtz got off to a slow start (.237 batting average, two home runs), the fifth-year Tellier has been the most productive hitter for the top-ranked Deacons. The third baseman is batting .390 with five home runs and five doubles.
• UNLV got off to a strong start in Friday night's Mountain West opener. The running Rebels scored 16 points in the bottom of the first inning, and the batters he hit twice. — en route to a 23-5 victory.
Every time he crossed the plate in the bottom of the first inning, he set a UNLV single-inning run record! 🏃♂️ #bear level #SC top 10 pic.twitter.com/B56qNMkMt3
— UNLV Baseball ⚾️ (@unlvbaseball) March 2, 2024
• Vanderbilt freshman Cam Koziel led the Commodores to a 5-0 record with 14 hits for 24, two home runs and 11 RBIs, including three wins in the Astros Foundation Classic in Houston. On Sunday, the Commodores came back from an 11-3 deficit to beat Texas 14-11.
• Remember last week's article about how the Texas pitching staff had three shutouts last week against Cal Poly? Now, in three games in Houston (losses to LSU, Texas State, and Vanderbilt), Long The Horns allowed 31 runs (26 earned) and 27 hits.
• Pitt had a great weekend in Las Vegas, defeating Oklahoma (19-9) and California (19-7) to improve to 8-1 (Saturday's game against Ohio State was canceled). The Panthers have been competitive in the ACC in recent years, but have yet to break through and earn an invitation to the NCAA Tournament. This program has not been held in the region since his 1995 year.
• Dallas Baptist had a productive week. The Patriots improved to 3-1 with a home win over Oklahoma State on Tuesday and neutral field wins over Arizona State (4-3) and Alabama (12 innings, 7-5) over the weekend. DBU, now 10-1, lost 9-7 to Indiana State on Saturday.
• The competition has been soft (to put it kindly), but Texas Tech is averaging 19.3 runs per game (3 to Texas Southern, 3 to Gardner Webb) during its current six-game winning streak. This season, the Red Raiders are 8-2 with losses to Tennessee and Oregon State.
(Photo provided by Georgia Tech Athletics Department)
