Rylen Stockton (ZooKeepers photo)
ASHEBORO — When Rylen Stockton signed up to play this summer for the Asheboro ZooKeepers, he was a member of UNC Asheville’s baseball team.
Yet a couple of weeks ago when it was his turn to go to the plate for the ZooKeepers, the introduction said he plays for Maryland.
That’s part of the evolving nature of collegiate summer baseball.
“I just committed to Maryland a few days ago,” Stockton said June 3.
So after one season with UNC Asheville, the catcher from Sarasota, Florida, will be heading elsewhere in August when he reports for his second year of college.
The summer circuit is for additional development and more baseball opportunities following the regular college season. It’s also a showcase opportunity for some players.
“You kind of use the summer as like a recruiting tool because coaches are all around recruiting,” Stockton said.
It can be tricky territory for the coaching staffs of the summer teams. Those coaches want to be supportive, but the decisions rest with the players.
“We try not to get too wrapped up in that,” ZooKeepers coach Korey Dunbar said. “We’re here to help guys. That’s their choice and it’s up to them.”
Stockton’s situation was different from many because of Scott Friedholm’s departure as UNC Asheville’s coach after 11 seasons. As a result, more than a dozen of the Bulldogs entered the transfer portal.
“If your coach leaves, you can go into the portal right away,” Stockton said. “So I was able to get in the portal early and be able to talk to the schools before other people did. I got a jump-start on the recruiting process, so that was my little competitive advantage with that.
“I think that helped me a lot. Maryland jumped on me and I really enjoyed what they had to offer.”
Stockton, who batted a team-best .343 with UNC Asheville, made a visit to College Park, Maryland, while waiting for Asheboro’s Coastal Plain League season to begin.
He was pretty much locked into taking the Maryland spot before the transfer portal opened for other players earlier this month.
Stockton had seven home runs and 12 doubles for UNC Asheville. He was named to the All-Big South Conference second team and the all-freshman team. He threw out 19 runners attempting to steal for the second-highest total among Big South catchers.
Stockton will go from a Big South team to a Big Ten Conference school. That means he leaves behind his brother Jaden Stockton, a pitcher for Big South member Gardner-Webb.
Other ZooKeepers are checking on potential transfers. Matt Goldenbaum pitched for South Florida this year, but he committed last week to transfer to Creighton.
A coaching change at Barton has 2025 players from that school in the portal.
“They have to find a home for the fall,” Dunbar said.
Dunbar is involved in recruiting players to compete for the ZooKeepers. That means creating relationships with college coaches so that they’ll want to send players to the ZooKeepers for the summer. It often leads to players from the same colleges coming to Asheboro each year.
So he doesn’t want to fracture those relationships if players decide to switch colleges in June and July. That’s why he said it’s important to remain neutral in terms of the transfer process and concentrate on ways he and his staff can help the ZooKeepers players with on-field development.
