It’s the offseason for the Quakers, but there are some out there playing like All-Stars.
A total of four Penn baseball players have earned All-Star Game selections in their respective summer leagues for their solid play so far this summer.
“I’ve been having a really good summer so far,” said rising senior pitcher Vince Voiro who is playing for Woodstock River Bandits of the Cal Ripken League. “I’ve been starting for my team down here and pretty much every start I’ve had so far I think I’ve pitched pretty well.”
In addition to Voiro, rising sophomore Brandon Engelhardt and rising juniors Greg Zebrack and Ryan Deitrich have all been named All-Stars this summer.
As their All-Star selections show, all four of these Quakers have had a successful summer and have used the offseason as an opportunity to build on the successes of the past season.
Zebrack, a first-team All-Ivy outfielder last season, has a .372 batting average, having had 35 hits in 22 games and connecting on five home runs while playing in the California Collegiate League (CCL).
Fellow outfielder Deitrich has built on his late-season success with the Quakers, amassing a total of 24 hits and hitting a .312 batting average for the Herndon Braves in the Cal Ripken League.
Playing in the same league as Deitrich, second baseman Engelhardt is leading his team with a .370 average on 17 hits, continuing the solid play the Quakers saw from him during the season.
Possibly the most intriguing of the four Quakers is the aforementioned Voiro.
Last month, Voiro — who has an ERA of 1.70 and 41 strikeouts in six starts this summer — was drafted by the San Diego Padres in the 47th round of the MLB Draft. However, the 6-foot-4 Cherry Hill, N.J. native has yet to sign a deal with the team which appears to be looking to use the summer to gauge Voiro’s development.
“They contacted me after the draft and said that they were going to follow me through the summer and see if we could work something out at some point,” Voiro said. “But you can’t really think about this kind of stuff. You just need to continue to go out there and do well and hope that everything else will work its way out.”
Thus, while there is uncertainty as to whether all four Quakers will share the field once the school year begins, it’s clear that the summer league has been beneficial to all of the players.
“It’s interesting coming to summer ball league when you’re playing with kids from all over the country with all different positions of baseball and different levels of baseball,” Voiro said. “You really get to see where your talents lie among everyone else that plays.”
And for these Quakers, their talents clearly lie among the stars.
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