Editor’s Note: Because the UF-Virginia game was still being played at press time, statistics in this story are accurate through Florida’s 15-3 win against Miami on Saturday.
A quartet of UF baseball players is slated to join the USA Baseball Collegiate National team this Summer.
Pitchers Logan Shore and A.J. Puk, center fielder Buddy Reed and catcher/designated hitter JJ Schwarz will join the 24-player team once they finish play at the College World Series, UF announced Sunday.
"We are very proud that Logan, A.J., JJ and Buddy were selected to play on Team USA," UF coach Kevin O’Sullivan said in a release. "It is a tremendous honor for them to represent our country and will be an experience of a lifetime for them."
The sophomore duo of Shore and Puk has carried the Gators’ pitching staff all season, providing Florida with one of the most effective one-two punches in collegiate baseball since the start of the postseason. Shore has 10 wins — a mark UF hasn’t seen from one pitcher since Hudson Randall earned 11 wins in 2011 — and Puk is close behind with nine.
Each has accomplished the feat in different fashion.
Shore, the righty who’s been in the weekend rotation practically since he stepped foot on campus, leads the Gators’ staff with 106 innings pitched and has tossed two complete games this season.
Puk, the 6-foot-7 lefty, provides the power and quickly finds the strike zone.
He has a team-best 99 strikeouts in just 72.2 innings of work. Puk is one strikeout from becoming Florida’s first pitcher with triple-digit strikeouts since 2007 (Bryan Augenstein, 105), and his 12.26 strikeouts per nine innings ranks second in school history only to John Burke in 1990 (13.25).
Reed, also a sophomore, has been a rock for the Gators in center field, making web-gem plays on an almost routine basis.
He’s committed just two errors on defense and leads the Gators with a career-high 84 hits.
Schwarz, the NCBWA Freshman Hitter of the Year, leads Florida in home runs (18, also the school’s freshman record), RBIs (73), doubles (16) and slugging percentage (.649).
The Palm Beach Gardens native has also been named to four All-America teams (D1 Baseball – second-team; NCBWA and Baseball America – third-team; Collegiate Baseball – Freshman team).
The USA Baseball Collegiate National Team will play 17 games spanning from June 20-July 8.
The college team’s tour concludes with the Americas Baseball Festival — a four-team round-robin tournament between the USA Baseball Pan American Games Team, the Canadian Senior National Team, the Cuban National Team and the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team.
Follow Jordan McPherson on Twitter @J_McPherson1126.
Florida's Logan Shore (32) pitches during the Gators' 15-3 victory against Miami in the NCAA Men's College World Series on Saturday, June 13, 2015 at the TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha.
