Friday night was the First Pitch Banquet which was a great evening for those in attendance.  Appeared to be well over 200 folks in the Montview Ballroom and we heard from AD Ian Mccaw, Nick Pierce, Coach Jackson & a Q&A session with a quartet of seniors including Betts, Garret, Erickson & Guy.  I also had the privilege of introducing the Flames Diamond Collective Inc. which is a newly formed NIL Collective that myself, Brandon Baker, Sheldon Bream, Alex Close & Billy Daniels have partnered together to form.  The website and collective should be up and running by Opening day and I look forward to sharing more details with you all then.  There's also a great benefit to the community with this collective and we hope to have 501C3 status by year end as well.  More to come.

Let's move to the diamond where we're T-2 weeks to opening day in Hattiesburg.  All signs continue to point toward Horn being able to take the ball on opening night.  The rest of the rotation remains in flux but I would think Mikey Tepper will get a shot along with the other guys that I've written about the last few months.  Offensively and Defensively, Coach Jackson mentioned it's as deep of a team as we've ever had.  I think that will probably carry over into the season.  Liberty scrimmaged twice this past weekend and will go again tomorrow(Monday at 4 pm).  I'll spend most of my time writing about Sunday as the weather Friday was brutal.  

Moran was hot with 3 Innings pitched and 6 punch outs while issuing no walks and 0 earned runs.  Hard throwing Trey Carter came on in relief late in the game and picked up a hold as he went 1 2/3 innings with 2 K's to strand 2 inherited runners in scoring position.  Troyer hit another no doubter 3 run HR to go along with a double.  Jake Lazzaro continued his resurgence as he was on base 3 times including a double, walk, stolen base and he scored 3 times.  Hillier had 2 singles and Keeter added a single and stolen bag.  Horton continues to find his name in the action with a loud single and stolen base.  Jenner added a single and Burns added a double.  On the other team Betts had a hard hit single and walk.  Kepley stayed hot as well as he was on base 3 times including 2 singles and a walk.  Hudson had a double and Mcneal added a bloop single and stolen bag.  Hertzler reached base 3 times, all on walks.   

Jobs are still up in the air but it would appear Troyer, Lazzaro & Jenner are all making claims to get the nod early in the season at RF, SS & 1B respectively.  DH, LF & 2B battles may go into the season.  Castillo, Stewart and Hillier are all in that LF DH mix and Keeter and Simmons will continue to battle it out at 2B.  Kepley, at minimum has shown he can be a quality backup in CF to Guy and Horton has seen some time in LF as well.  Hertzler could factor into the 1B/DH mix as well.  Lots of things can happen and things may look very different by the time we get to March 1st or so but we will know a lot more after this week's scrimmages.  

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