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North Pinellas, West Pasco represented in NCAA baseball regionals

BY ERIC HORCHY

THE SUNCOAST NEWS

Published: May 30, 2009

The road to the NCAA College Baseball World Series gets under way this weekend and two former Suncoast stars will take part in the ride.

Ex-Ridgewood standout Ben Koenigsfeld, now at the U.S. Military Academy, and Dunedin's Clay Kollenbaum, with Jacksonville University, will make trips to their teams' respective four-team regional sites and try and advance to super regionals in early June.

Both players' teams advance to regionals as conference champions. Koenigsfeld helped West Point (34-19) with both his arm and bat to win the Patriot League title. Kollenbaum worked 27 1/3 innings this season for the Atlantic Sun Conference winners.

In the NCAA baseball tournament, 64 teams qualify and are broken into 16, four-team pods. One team then advances from the double-elimination regional and into the best-of-3 super regionals.

Army will travel to Austin, Texas, as a No. 4 seed in its regional pod. Jacksonville heads to Gainesville as a No. 3 seed.

After an impressive freshman campaign, Koenigsfeld has certainly come into his own this season. He is batting .343 with seven home runs and 34 RBI while primarily pitching and playing first base.

Koenigsfeld is the Black Knights' No. 2 starter, posting an 8-4 record and 4.98 ERA in 77 2/3 innings.

The Cadets will face a daunting challenge if it hopes to advance to the super regionals. Host Texas is the tournament's overall top seed - and that is who the Black Knights open against. No. 2 Texas St. and No. 3 Boston College fill out the pod.

Jacksonville's path is not much smoother. Kollenbaum and the Dolphins will take on the regional pod's No. 2 seed, Miami.

The Hurricanes are in a record 37th consecutive NCAA field. No. 1 Florida, the host, is the nation's eighth ranked team and No. 4 Bethune-Cookman is the group's final entrant.

Kollenbaum has worked out of the bullpen for most of the season, though he did earn himself four starts.

He owns a 1-1 record and 10.87 ERA in 11 appearances while continuing to get accustomed with Division-I hitters.

Regional play began Friday and will wrap up on Monday. Super regionals begin June 5.

Go to www.GoArmySports.com> to follow the Black Knights and Ben Koenigsfeld. For updates on Jacksonville and Clay Kollenbaum, go to www.judolphins.com>.

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