The SoCal Shepherds are looking to bounce back after last year's 1st round playoff exit. With the first game rapidly approaching on June 10th against the Ventura County Pirates, here are some of the key players to keep an eye out for this season:

The first of two returning players is infielder and right-handed pitcher Jackson LoBianco. Jackson is going into his junior year and played his spring at Shippensburg University. At Shippensburg, he pitched 22 ⅓ innings allowing five earned runs and striking out 16 in his sophomore year. In 15 relief appearances, Jackson recorded five saves with a 2.01 ERA.

Last year with the Shepherds, Jackson had a batting average of .257 with an OBP of .358. He had 18 hits in 21 games, including two doubles and a Homerun.

The second of our returners is right-handed pitcher Andrew White. This is Andrew’s third summer on the Shepherds, last year he pitched 31 ⅔ innings with 27 strikeouts and a 5.40 ERA. He pitched the second most innings for the Shepherds last year, and you can expect him to be a key member of the pitching staff again this year.

One of the new players joining the Shepherds this summer is Shane Poe. Shane is a shortstop that plays his springs at Mendocino College where he had a .407 batting average in 36 games including 35 RBI’s and 15 stolen bases in 2022. Shane excelled against his in-conference opponents, brandishing a batting average of .458 and a slugging percentage of .711 for the Eagles. He’s making the trip down to Southern California to heavily contribute to the Shepherd's offense this summer.

Andrew Lujan is another new player on the squad, joining the team locally from Biola University. Andrew is an infielder and is one of four lefty batters joining us this summer before his junior year. Andrew had a .245 batting average for Biola with 25 RBI’s and 6 home runs.

The Shepherds begin their season on June 10th against the Ventura County Pirates. The game will be live streamed on the Shepherd’s twitch page which can be found at https://www.twitch.tv/socalshepherdsbaseball to stay up to date on all things Shepherds baseball follow us on Instagram (@shepherds_baseball), Twitter (@SoCalShepherds), Facebook (Southern California FCA Baseball), and our new Tiktok (@Shepherdsbaseball).