* Garrett Horn started for one side and he was dealing w/ 92-93 mph heat.
* C Jack McMullan had the hardest hit off of Horn. He hit a 92 mph fastball to left field & 1-hopped the wall. Exit velocity was 102 mph.
* C Three Hillier did not play.
* McMullan and Macaddin Dye shared the catching duties. Both made good throws to 2B on steal attempts.
* Cole Hertzler started for the other side. He gave up some contact but only one hard hit.
* SS Brian McClellin had that hard hit. He took an 83 mph offspeed pitch and drove it off of the left-center wall. EV was 105 mph.
* C Dye battled in a long at-bat in which he worked a walk after 9 or 10 pitches.
* 2B John Simmons made a good play deep in the hole.
* CF Nathan Keeter had an outstanding sliding catch in the middle of the logo.
* 1B Brayden Horton made a nifty play in which he fielded a grounder & flipped the ball from his glove to the pitcher covering 1B, which was necessitated by the brace on his apparently injured right hand.
* CF Kane Kepley and 2B Aidan Sweatt are going to be a handful for opposing pitchers and defenses, and by handful, I mean nightmare. They were busy doing Kepley and Sweatt things all scrimmage long–hitting for average, speed, base-running, steals, speed. Did I mention speed?
* Sweatt runs out hits as hard as anyone I’ve seen. He’s on the same level as Derek Orndorff. If an OF drops a ball, Sweatt is going to be on 2B, probably 3B, and not 1B as he busts it every time. Glad he’s playing for Liberty instead of wearing our team out again.
* I would be remiss in leaving out Tanner Marsh. He also has speed, and he swiped a bag off of Trey Carter & Dye.
* Trey Cooper was hitting 93 mph in his inning of work.
* Trey Carter had some good at-bats and some not-so-good ones. He had some pre-season control issues.
* Hooboy, Ben Roberts is going to be fun. 97 mph gas with 79 mph offspeed. Control might be a bit of an issue. He struck out Cam Foster with some high heat, but also had 2 or 3 wild pitches.
* Ben Blair touched 96 mph and was consistently sitting at 93-94.
* It was only the first spring (winter?) scrimmage, so the players are still knocking rust off. There wasn’t a whole lot of hitting, but as usual, the pitchers are ahead of the hitters.
* This team is a whole lot more right-handed at the plate than last year.
* Coach Jackson appears to have reloaded the team after a bit of a transition year last year.
* Defense up the middle is going to be back to what we’ve come to expect from a Liberty team. Marsh and Sweatt are going to be great there with Kepley behind them.
* This team has lots more speed. Hopefully, they will be tormenting opposing catchers and defenses.
* All but one of the pitchers in this scrimmage were sitting at 92+ mph on their fastballs.
* The hitting will come around. With Kepley and Sweatt hitting at the top of the lineup, there will be runners on base for the middle of the lineup a whole lot more often than last year.
