IS LAMENTING OVER THE LATISSIMUS
READING -- Reading righthander Trevor May, No. 1 in The Inquirer/Daily News ranking of the Phillies Top 25 minor league prospects, improved to 4-0 with Wednesday’s 1-0 win over the Richmond Flying Squirrels at First Energy Stadium.
May, pitched six shutout innings, allowing just one hit. He walked two and struck out seven. One reason he only pitched six innings was that May threw 90 pitches, 55 for strikes.
His no-hitter was broken up with one out in the fifth inning on a single by right fielder Juan Perez.
“I felt confident in all my pitches,” said May, who lowered his ERA to 2.35. “Even more so than feeling good body-wise and feel-wise with my pitches, I felt relaxed and definitely confident that I could throw all my pitches for strikes.”
May, who has never thrown a professional no-hitter, said he didn’t think about it. He said the only thing that mattered was giving Reading the chance to win, which he certainly did for the fourth time in four outings.
Maurice Briggs, a former standout basketball player at Norristown High School, signed a scholarship to play at Morehead State on Wednesday.
The 6-foot-8 forward is a third-team junior college all-American at Beaver County Community College in Western Pennsylvania. Briggs averaged 23 points and 13 rebounds this past season.
He chose Morehead State over Robert Morris, Maryland Eastern Shore, Tennessee State and Tennessee Tech. Wake Forest also recently expressed some interest.
-- Keith Pompey
ALLENTOWN, PA -- It was a tough night for heralded prospect Bryce Harper of the Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs, making his first local appearance of the year.
Harper went 1-for-5 with a triple and three strikeouts as the Lehigh Valley IronPigs defeated the Chiefs, 7-6, at Coca-Cola Park.
Harper had 11 strikeouts in 28 spring training at-bats with the Washington Nationals, so that is part of his game that must be worked on.
Still, it’s hard to find anybody in baseball that doesn’t think Harper will eventually be a superstar.
Yet those who campaigned that he make the Nationals team out of spring training were probably being overly optimistic.
Harper will need time to hone his skills as this opening of a three-game series with the IronPigs showed.
Boys’ Latin Charter’s Maurice Watson, Jr. and Prep Charter’s Kahleah Copper on Wednesday were named winners of the fifth annual Phoenix Awards.
The Phoenix Club of Philadelphia was created in 2008 by Michael Horsey, a local certified public accountant, to recognize the most outstanding boys’ and girls’ senior basketball players in the Public League.
Watson, a 5-foot-10 point guard who signed with Boston University, averaged 21.8 points this season and scored 2,356 points for his career.
Copper, a 6-1 point guard who signed, is regarded as the nation’s 17th-best female college prospect in the Class of2012, according to ESPN. The Rutgers signee participated in Wednesday’s McDonald’s All American girls’ game in Chicago. Copper averaged 20 points and 14 rebounds this season.
-- Keith Pompey
Phelps Schools Senior Mike Bedulskis a 6'9 Forward from Vilnius, Lithuania committed to UNC-Ashville for a Full Basketball Scholarship next year. Bedulskis picked UNC-Ashville over Colgate, Dartmouth, Loyola Chicago, George Washington.
ATLANTA -- For some time, it has been assumed that Michael Kidd-Gilchrist would enter the NBA draft following this his freshman season at Kentucky.
Already an elite college player, it would be a shock if the 6-foot-7 forward didn’t go pro.
So it didn’t come as a surprise that ESPN.com's Chad Ford reported Thursday that, according to multiple sources, the Somerdale native will enter the NBA draft after the Wildcats’ season ends.
However, Kidd-Gilchrist said Thursday evening that he has yet to make a decision.
“I’m focus on the games right now,” said Kidd-Gilchrist, whose No.1 seed Wildcats face fourth-seeded Indiana in Friday’s South Regional semifinal at the Georgia Dome. “Once the season is over, I will sit down with my family and make a decision.”
The 18-year-old is averaging 11.8 points and 7.6 rebounds this season.
Assuming Kidd-Gilchrist opts to turn pro, Draftexpress.com has him going third overall in its latest 2012 NBA mock draft. NBAdraft.net projects that he’ll be the fourth pick.
“I have no clue where that’s coming from,” Kidd-Gilchrist said of the ESPN report.
- Keith Pompey
Drexel coach Bruiser Flint spent a lot of time shaking hands and hugging before and after the annual Coaches vs. Cancer NCAA breakfast at the Palestra while accepting both congratulations and condolences for a 27-win season that wasn’t good enough to get the Dragons into the NCAA tournament.
Drexel was kept out because of the weakness of its non-conference schedule, according to the chairman of the committee that selects the field. But as St. Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli explained, the issue of scheduling non-conference games always is a conundrum for coaches.
“I don’t think the general public understands that scheduling is the most difficult part of our job,” Martelli said Monday. “It’s not recruiting. It’s not really coaching our teams or the practice sessions. It’s that one thing.”
Martelli’s Hawks were the only Big Five team to play the Dragons this season.
“You know what your team is going to look like,” he said. “You know what your contract looks like. So you’re looking at a situation where you say either, ‘I’m scheduling to have a winning record’ or you’re scheduling to be a post-season team.
“Sometimes you schedule and that post-season might be the NIT. Then other times you have to schedule with the idea that, on that Sunday, you don’t want to give them anything that will allow them to take us out of the conversation. It’s a bear for Drexel.”
The Dragons gained a consolation prize, a berth in the NIT along with St. Joseph’s and La Salle. In fact, five of the City Six coaches present for the 14th annual American Cancer Society fund-raiser are preparing for the post-season, with Temple in the NCAA and Penn accepting an invitation to the College Basketball Invitational.
La Salle coach John Giannini felt Drexel was hurt by matters it could not control.
“St. Bonaventure winning was great for our league (Atlantic 10) but maybe that knocked Drexel out,” Giannini said. “Things happen sometimes that are completely outside of your control.
“Even in their league (CAA), you don’t expect Towson (1-31) to go through what they went through. Sometimes you schedule people that are normally very good and maybe they just have down years.”
Villanova coach Jay Wright said he had scheduling problems when he was coaching mid-major Hofstra, which went to the NCAA tournament twice as America East tournament champions.
“One year we would up playing Belmont home and home because Belmont was really good, too,” he said. “The two of us were communciating to see if we could try to help each other get games. Finally we just said, ‘Let’s play home and home.’ It’s really tough.”
Not surprisingly, all the City Six coaches felt badly about the Dragons’ omission from the field of 68.
“I’m pretty close with Bruiser so I’m a little bit disappointed for him and his guys,” Penn coach Jerome Allen said. “They did a tremendous job at Drexel. They had an outstanding year.
“I just think, whatever their schedule is, it’s still Division I basketball. Their body of work can stand for itself.”
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