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June 7, 2012

Five PBC Baseball Players Selected in Major League Baseball Draft

NEW YORK, NY – Five Peach Belt Conference baseball players got the call of a lifetime this week as they were selected in the 2012 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft, which concluded on Wednesday.  USC Aiken’s Stephen Carmon was the first PBC player selected, going in the 10th round, while Armstrong’s Zack Taylor was selected in the 12th.  A trio of Flagler players - Garrett Bush, Jonathan Armold, and John Sgromolo - were then selected in subsequent rounds to fill out the PBC roster.

Carmon was the seventh pick of the 10th round and the 315th pick overall, taken by the San Diego Padres. The Camden, S.C. native is the first Pacer to be picked in the Major League Baseball First-Year Player draft since Chad Jacobsen was picked by the Colorado Rockies in the 18th Round of the 2008 draft.

Carmon ended his senior year in a Pacer uniform by being named to the College Baseball Lineup DII All-Star Team. He was also chosen a Tino Martinez Award semifinalist, a ABCA Second-Team All-Region selection and a NCBWA All-Region Honorable Mention choice. Carmon led the Peach Belt Conference and USC Aiken with 45 stolen bases in the 2012 season.  The 45 stolen bases placed him in the top-5 in the country in the category and he closed out his Pacer career with a school-record 100 stolen bases.

The two-time All-Peach Belt Conference selection hit .348 (79-for-227) in the 2012 season. He scored a team-best 57 runs to go along with 28 RBIs. The 2009 Peach Belt Conference Freshman of the Year ended the 2012 season as the toughest to strike out in all of NCAA Division II baseball. Carmon only struck out six times in the 2012 season.

The Phillies used the 398th overall selection in the draft to take Taylor, who was the 2012 Peach Belt Conference Player of the Year as well as a first-team Division II All-American outfielder by both the ABCA and the NCBWA.

The Statesboro, Ga., native hit .373 with 15 home runs and 71 RBIs, leading the Peach Belt in both power categories while also slugging .699 for the season and stealing 21-of-25 bases. 

Taylor is the 25th player to be drafted from Armstrong since Warren Bachman (1982) was the first Pirate to be selected in the MLB First-Year Player Draft. Overall, the Pirates have sent 73 players to professional baseball in the last 30 years and Taylor will join a Phillies organization that also includes former Pirate and 2007 21st-round draftee Jeremy Horst, who currently pitches in AAA at Lehigh Valley.

Flagler has never had more than two players selected in one draft in the history of the program.

Bush, a 6-foot-6, 195-pound right-handed pitcher, went in the 24th Round, the 747th pick overall, to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Armold, a 6-foot-2, 200-pound right-handed pitcher went in the 30th Round, the 935th overall pick, to the Milwaukee Brewers. John Sgromolo, a 6-foot, 200-pound first baseman was selected in the 37th Round, the 1,136th pick, to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

For Bush, this was not the first time a Major League team came calling. He was a 15th Round pick of the Baltimore Orioles in 2009 coming out of Stanton College Prep in Jacksonville, and was a 19th Round selection of the Los Angeles Dodgers last year after attending Seminole State College in Sanford. He made nine appearances with two starts for the Saints this season. Bush pitched a total of 11.2 innings and recorded nine strikeouts. He lost his Flagler debut on Feb. 5 after tossing two innings against the defending national champion University of West Florida. Bush fanned a season-high three batters vs. Florida Memorial (Mar. 28).

Armold has been a four-year starter on the hill for Flagler. He has won 16 games in his career with a 4.25 earned run average. Armold has recorded 255 career strikeouts in 313.2 innings of work. He has made 54 appearances and broke the school record with 51 starts. Armold went 5-5 this year with a 4.67 ERA. He made 12 appearances, all starts, and tossed a staff-high 69.1 innings with 62 strikeouts. Armold struck out a career-high 11 batters vs. the University of Montevallo (Mar. 10) and earned the win.

Sgromolo was a four-starter for the Saints as well, the first two years as a designated hitter and the last two as a first baseman. He batted .313 for his career and collected 208 hits, 41 doubles, 10 home runs, drove in 95 runs and scored 105 runs. Sgromolo also boasts a .990 career fielding percentage. He is sixth all-time at Flagler in hits, tied for fourth in singles with 156, sixth in doubles and third in fielding. A two-time second-team All-Peach Belt Conference selection, he batted .317 this season with 59 hits and a team-leading 17 doubles. He also led the team with 31 runs batted in and a .996 fielding percentage, which is the second highest single-season percentage at Flagler.