June 20, 2012
WASHINGTON - Members of the Georgetown baseball team had little time to rest and relax after the regular season finished last month, with more than a dozen players competing in various summer leagues throughout the country.
Rising senior center fielder Justin Leeson (Exton, Pa./West Chester), a 39th round draft pick of the Kansas City Royals in the Major League Baseball Draft, is playing in the famed Cape Cod League with the Harwich Mariners. Leeson, an All-BIG EAST Third Team selection after batting .332 this season, has appeared in five games for the Mariners and has one home run.
Rising junior first baseman Steve Anderson (Albany, N.Y./Guilderland) is playing for the Newport (R.I.) Gulls of the New England Collegiate Baseball League. Through six games, Anderson is fourth in the league in batting with a .348 average.
Junior pitcher Jack Vander Linden (Dallas, Texas/Dallas Episcopal) is pitching for the Alaska Goldpanners of the Alaskan Baseball League (www.goldpanners.com). Vander Linden has started one game, throwing five innings, while allowing no runs on one hit with six strikeouts.
Sophomore Matt Hollenbeck (Horsham, Pa./Hatboro-Horsham) is pitching for the Quakertown Blazers (www.quakertownblazers.com) of the Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League and is 1-0, picking up a win in two innings of relief.
Two Hoyas - rising juniors Christian Venditti (Newtonville, Mass./St. Sebastian's Country Day) and Justin Abbott (Raleigh, N.C./Millbrook) - are playing for the Dekalb County Liners (www.dekalbcountyliners.com) of the Midwest Collegiate League. Venditti has appeared in all 12 games for the Liners, and is batting .231, while Abbott has appeared in nine games and is batting .316.
Those two will face off at some point this summer against rising sophomore Max Allen (Highland Park, Ill./Highland Park), who is playing for the Dupage Hounds (www.dupagehounds.com) is Lisle, Ill. Allen has started one game, throwing 4.1 innings in his first start, and the Hounds are 5-5 overall.
Rising sophomore Will Brown (Chesterfield, Va./Matoaca) is playing for the Strasburg Express (www.strasburgexpress.com) of the Valley Baseball League. The Express are 5-10 overall this season and Brown is 0-1 after taking the loss in his first start.
Others appearing on summer league rosters include rising shortstop Ryan Busch (Falcon Heights, Minn./Roseville Area), who is playing for the Chillcoathe Mudcats in Missouri as part of the MINK League. Their schedule starts later this month.
Georgetown finished the 2012 season with a 24-29 overall record and a 10-17 mark in the BIG EAST. Georgetown tied for eighth place in the league and missed out on an appearance in the BIG EAST Tournament by percentage points. The team's 24 overall wins and 10 league wins were the most for the program since 2006.
