Oct. 15, 2010
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State baseball team earned a special mention in Baseball America's list of the top recruiting classes in the nation after head coach Robbie Wine and his staff put together an outstanding group of incoming freshmen.
The Nittany Lions boast a talented collection of newcomers that will begin competing for the program in the spring. Overall, the squad added 12 freshmen hailing from five states that range from California to Massachusetts.
"Penn State's class stands out in the Big Ten," wrote Baseball America's Aaron Fitt in his college recruiting notebook. "Righthander Austin Urban was garnering top-five-rounds interest from Pennsylvania area scouts in April, thanks to an 89-93 mph fastball with sink and the makings of a quality slider."
Urban, who was eventually selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the 27th round of the draft, comes to Penn State as a highly-touted prospect from Richland High School. An All-State performer as both a pitcher and shortstop, he was rated as the third-best prospect in Pennsylvania and just outside of Baseball America's top-200 overall prior to the 2010 MLB Draft.
Although Urban garnered the most attention of the incoming players, Baseball America noted that Penn State possesses a deep freshman class with more than one standout in the bunch.
"The Nittany Lions also reeled in a pair of interesting prospects from Massachusetts in strong-armed catcher Alex Farkes and projectable two-way talent T.J. Jann," added Fitt in his report on Penn State.
Jann, who was named the MVP of his Westford Academy baseball team, posted a .388 batting average as a senior while also notching a perfect 4-0 mark to go along with a 0.87 ERA on the mound. Farkes, a product of Buckingham Browne and Nichols, earned first-team All-League honors while leading his squad to the school's first-ever undefeated season in 2010.
In addition to the players singled out in the Baseball America report, the Nittany Lions have nine other quality freshmen that will team up with the veteran portion of the squad in the spring. Once again, Penn State brought in several strong players from the Keystone State as Scott Dixon, Zach Ell, Greg Welsh, and Geoff Boylston join Urban as in-state recruits.
Tim Dunn and Gaston Escudero made the long trek from California to don the Blue and White, while Kris Johnson joins the team out of Florida. Massachusetts' Sam August and Virginia's Eric McGee round out the newest Nittany Lions.