By: Ian Patton and Rachel Hills
Duluth, Minn — With the season right around the corner, the Duluth Huskies Baseball Club is thrilled to be adding new players that will add depth to the pitching roster for the 2019 season.
Joining the team are four Right-Handed pitchers to include: Dennis Boatman, Erik Kaiser, Danny Zimmerman, and Mason Bryant. The Huskies are excited to be bringing in such elite talent for the upcoming season.
Dennis Boatman is a talented right-handed pitcher and a freshman at Baseball powerhouse UCLA, where he is majoring in Business Economics. Dennis began his baseball journey in Roseville, California where in no time he was racking up the Accolades. Dennis was a three-time athletic letter winner in baseball and had an impressive high school career at Woodcreek High School.
Boatman, as a sophomore, had an ERA of 1.23 and boasted 30 strikeouts in 45.2 innings. This performance garnered him a Rawlings perfect game underclass All-American Honorable mention selection in 2016. He followed this up with an even better junior season where he had an ERA of 1.36 with 50 strikeouts in 56.2 innings. Following his junior season Boatman was ranked 48th in the 2018 Perfect Game USA Top High School Prospects in the state of California and 311th in the 2018 Perfect Game USA Top 500 High School Prospects. Along with this Dennis was named to the Rawlings Top Prospect Team at the 2017 Perfect Game National Showcase and this gave him an invitation to the Team Brave in the USA Baseball Tournament of Stars where he performed well.
Erik Kaiser is a talented right-handed pitcher who is a sophomore at Vanderbilt where he is majoring in Economics. Kaiser is identified by his strong drive for improvement and powerful arm. Kaiser was born in Saint Louis, Missouri to a family of impressive athletes. Kaiser’s father played baseball at Mussoorie State and played inside the San Francisco Giants organization. This athletic family dynamic lead Kaiser to begin playing baseball at a young age and lead him to excel at the high school level. Kaiser played high school baseball at Waterloo High School where he and his team were able to reach the regional finals in his senior year. In Kaiser’s senior season he was named a Rawlings Perfect Game honorable mention and All- USA today second team all-state along with being the conference player of the year. These accolades were matched with those he achieved the year before with his being named to the Rawlings-Perfect Game 2016 Underclass first-team and being a finalist for the rising star award by the ABHOF. In his time at Vanderbilt Kaiser has had some impressive games boasting shutouts due in no small part to his arm strength.
Danny Zimmerman is a right-handed pitcher and a redshirt sophomore at the University of Michigan where he is studying Kinesiology. Zimmerman comes from a heavily athletic family with his mother having played volleyball at Pepperdine University. Zimmerman gravitated to baseball as a young man and quickly began to show out on the mound. In High School at Redondo Union High School, he excelled achieving many awards and being part of several league championship teams. As a junior Zimmerman achieved USA baseball tournament of stars selection and this skyrocketed him to a powerful junior season. As a senior Zimmerman batted with an impressive .443 batting average along with 39 RBI’s and a school record 11 home runs. Along with batting, Zimmerman pitched 42 innings with 36 strikeouts. After an impressive senior session, Zimmerman raked in a slew of awards including Cali hi all-state baseball first team, Rawlings-Perfect Game Honorable Mention All-American California and Bay League MVP. Following this impressive senior season, Zimmerman made the trip to Ann Arbor where he played key roles as a relief pitcher through his freshman season.
Mason Bryant is a right-handed pitcher who is a freshman at the University of Texas. Had a good freshman season for the Longhorns where he performed as a relief pitcher. Before attending The University of Texas Bryant was a multi-sport athlete in baseball and football at McCallum high school in Austin Texas. Bryant performed well as an outfielder and a pitcher earning all-district honorable mention as a sophomore and all district outright as a junior. As a Junior Bryant had an ERA of 1.24 along with a total of 36 strikeouts. Bryant’s athleticism leads him to not only reach recognition in baseball but football as well. As a junior Bryant has named the first team all-conference as a punter along with the first team all-conference the year before as a wide receiver and his team’s offensive MVP.
As the session is quickly approaching the Duluth Huskies are very excited to add such depth to the mound. Don’t forget to catch them play as the Huskies open up their home season on Sunday, June 2nd, 2019 against the Eau Claire Express. Until then, don’t forget to stay connected with the Huskies on the official website duluthhuskies.com and on all social media platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
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The Duluth Huskies are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. Now in its 25th anniversary season, the Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 22 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires and front office staff, more than 200 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champions Ben Zobrist (CHC) and Brandon Crawford (SFG) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET) and Curtis Granderson (TOR). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League portal. For more information, visit www.duluthhuskies.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Huskies as your favorite team.