Edenton, N.C. - UND baseball sophomore Jake Magner is spending his summer nearly 1,500 miles away from his home town of Grand Rapids, Minn., on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The Sioux slugger was picked to play in the Coastal Plain Amateur Baseball League and began his summer season in late May playing first base and batting clean up for the Edenton Steamers.
Through 21 games, the Steamers are 10-11 and Magner is leading his club in home runs (four) and RBI (13).
Read about his journey below in the third installment of a summer blog that Magner will provide for Sioux fans on his experiences in a league that features wood bats and some of the top collegiate players in the nation.
Swinging on the Banks: Metal or Wood?
This last week was a week that included seven games in six days along with the same extreme heat and humidity. We finished the week with an overall record of 10-11, and have some work to do in the last seven games of the first half if we want to compete for a first-half title. Playoff spots in the Coastal Plain League are determined by the first and second-half division winners. There are three divisions, so six spots are taken automatically from the first and second-half winners. If you want to make a playoff run, it is important to win one of the halves.
Just like most college summer leagues, the Coastal Plain League is an all wood bat league. We were distributed two Rawlings ash bats at the beginning of the summer. Everytime we break one, we return it to the front office for a new one. I have found out that the bats we were given are not the most sturdy, so I have made a few trips to the front office to trade them in.
Hitting with a wood bat is a lot different then metal. The sweet spot is much smaller and you really have to square the ball up to drive it anywhere. If you get jammed or hit it off the end, it usually means a broken bat. This really makes you focus on getting good pitches to hit and taking advantage of them. I will be the first one to tell you that I would take a metal bat over a wood bat any day.
A new week starts today as we travel to Petersburg. We have four away games and two home games, so hopefully we can make a run at the first-half title and put together a winning streak. The days are getting hotter and longer, so another big hurdle will be getting more accilmated to this North Carolina heat and humidity!
