Seven Golden Eagle baseball players will be hanging up their purple and gold uniforms and donning a rainbow of colors for next season. A record five Golden Eagles were drafted into Major League Baseball.
Junior pitcher David Hess, chemistry, will be in the Baltimore Orioles’ orange and black.
Junior third baseman Daniel Miles, exercise science, physical education and wellness, will be in navy and blue for the Tampa Bay Rays.
Brandon Thomasson, exercise science, physical education and wellness, wore purple and gold as a senior right fielder. Soon, he will be in royal and light blue and playing for the Kansas City Royals.
In dark blue and sand, Golden Eagle pitcher Seth Lucio will be playing for the San Diego Padres. The senior studied exercise science, physical education and wellness at Tech.
Jordan Parris, marketing, will be catching for the Colorado Rockies and wearing purple and black.
Senior first baseman Zach Stephens, exercise science, physical education and wellness, signed a free agent deal to play with the Texas Rangers.
Ross Spurgeon, exercise science, physical education and wellness, also signed a deal with the Schaumburg Boomers of the independent Frontier League.
“We’re always excited for our guys when they get the chance to keep playing,” said Golden Eagle head baseball coach Matt Bragga. “Winning is the ultimate measuring tool when it comes to our game.No question. But when you can consistently guide players to the next level, that’s a whole different kind of winning.”
And the Golden Eagles have been winning a lot.The 2013-2014 season was the second in a row they have had 40-win seasons. Three of the past six years,they have been Ohio Valley Conference champions.
In the past eight seasons, 14 Golden Eagles have been drafted, and three more have been signed as free agents with Major League Baseball clubs.
Bragga says the reasons for the recent successes are three-fold: recruiting solid players, encouraging those players to talk to professional scouts and having a good staff of coaches to help them develop their skills.
“We want to help our guys fulfill their dreams, and when they get drafted, it comes back around and helps us in recruiting,” Bragga said. “We get to build a relationship for nearly a year before they arrive on campus, and we’ve been fortunate to have the right people in place to make these young men want to come to Tennessee Tech.”
