Bello, Stokes swing big lumber in hot week for small-school recruits

Brian Bello was one of the Bucs'
top batters in 2009.
Photo credit: AnchorageBucs.com

Several of the Alaska League's 2010 recruits posted big games for DII, DIII, junior college and NAIA programs last week, and a pair of familiar names -- Brian Bello and Mykal Stokes -- led the way.

After a little bit of a slow start, Brian Bello's (Bucs, 2009/2010 recruit) bat is coming around nicely. On Friday night the outfielder smashed his third longball of the year when his Mavericks of Mesa State downed the Colorado Christian Cougars. He was 2-for-4 with a pair of runs and four RBI's in that game. In Saturday's doubleheader he picked up another run, another RBI, and a pair of walks.

Bello was 5-for-25 (.200) in the month of February, but March has been much more kind to him. Since we flipped the page, he's hit .320 with 9 runs and 7 RBI over 22 at-bats. I don't know if he consulted Pedro Cerrano on how to awaken his bats or what, but this is the type of performance Bucs fans know Bello for.

Mykal Stokes, junior college draft
prospect and 2010 Panner
Photo credit: GoldPanners.com

The Goldpanners' 2010 recruit, Mykal Stokes, swung the hot bat for Orange Coast, piling on three hits, two runs, and another pair of RBI's to his batting totals for the season. So far this season he's got a respectable .816 OPS with a pair of triples to match his two homers.

Stokes was a member of the barnstorming Midnight Sun Goldpanners which was formed to celebrate the team's 50th anniversary last season. The highly-touted prospect was drafted twice out of high school, and has top-ten-round draft pick potential.

These two weren't the only notable performances around the small-school scene this week. The following players also had big games:

- Justin Denbow (Fire, 2010 recruit) picked up his first win of the year for Eastern Nazarene on Saturday. Throwing five even on the outing, he notched four strikeouts and surrendered two earned on just three hits. The Junior is the only left-hander out of all of AIA's recruits thus far this year.

- Zak Edgington (Panners, 2010 recruit) pitched six solid innings last Tuesday, allowing the Oxnard Condors to score just two runs on a paltry two hits. He struck out six batters and walked four on the day. The sohpomore Edgington is considered the staff ace of Santa Barbara City College, which has one of the top junior college programs in California.

- Derek Grieve (Panners, 2009/2010 recruit) of New Mexico Highlands threw 1.2 innings of relief on Friday, struck out two and gave up 2 hits and a walk. No runs were scored on his outing. This was a good outing for the second-year Panner, who has been swatted around to something on the order of .322 so far this year.

- Cam Schiller (Bucs, 2010 recruit) had a three-hit game for the Yavapai Roughriders against Central Arizona in the nightcap of Saturday's doubleheader. Schiller is batting .317 with a team-leading 17 RBI, and has swiped 7 bases on top of all that.