[Balki Bartokomou...]

For those of you who didn't know / care, The Marlins took Akron's Ross Liesemann in the 18th round of the MLB draft. He was the only Akron player drafted this year. K ent St. had 4 drafted, including Chad Wagler and Joe Tucker, both of which were recruited by Akron when they came out of high school. Good luck to all of them. Represent the MAC well.

here is the gozips story on Liersemann.





Liersemann Selected By Florida Marlins In MLB Player Draft
Ross Liersemann was taken in the 18th round by the Florida Marlins

June 7, 2006

Senior pitcher Ross Liersemann (Mansfield, Ohio/Lexington) was selected by the Florida Marlins in the 18th round of the Major League Baseball Player Draft on Tuesday afternoon.

Liersemann became the sixth player taken in the MLB draft from The University of Akron. He is the third-straight pitching prospect taken in the draft, joining Mark Malaska (8th round in 2000) and Aaron Gangi (14th round in 2003), both of whom went to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Liersemann, who was named MAC Pitcher of the Week three times this season and six times in his career, led the Zips pitching staff with a 3.78 earned run average, six wins, seven complete games and held opponents to a .246 batting average. He was listed on the College Baseball Foundation National Honor Roll twice and was also on the watch list for the 2006 Roger Clemens Award.

The senior right hander not only led the team in innings pitched, but established two new records in 2006. His 112 innings pitched top the previous single-season record of 95 1/3 innings that Liersemann shared with Tim Dobos. Also, he completed his career at Akron throwing in 334 innings, which surpassed the previous career record of 279 2/3 innings.

Liersemann led the team with a career-high 95 strike outs on the season, which ranks as the third-best total in a single season. In 2005, he struck out 81 batters, which currently ranks in a tie for seventh. His career total of 256 strikeouts ranks third all-time, just two behind Tim Dobos for second.

Liersemann was the 545th overall pick in what was the final round of day one. Five other Mid-American Conference players were taken on the first day of the draft, including Emmanuel Burris (Can't State), Matt Long (Miami), Keith Weiser (Miami), Brad Snyder (Ball State) and Brad Miller (Ball State).

[RootforRoo44]

1) Completely forgot about Balki Bartokomous' great signature.

2) If Andrew Brown gets two outs into the fourth today vs CMU he will pass Liersemann to become the all-time Zips leader in innings pitched, passing Ross' current record of 334.1 IP.