Harrisonburg Turks

Member of the Valley Baseball League and NACSB.

  • 1955 VBL Champions
  • 1958 VBL Champions
  • 1959 VBL Champions
  • 1962 VBL Champions
  • 1964 VBL Champions
  • 1969 VBL Champions
  • 1970 VBL Champions
  • 1971 VBL Champions
  • 1977 VBL Champions
  • 1991 VBL Champions
  • 2000 VBL Champions
  • 2012 VBL Champions
  • 2023 VBL Champions

2013 All-Valley League Teams Released

Six Turks Named to 2013 All-League Teams

The Valley League recently released its end-of-season awards, and Harrisonburg names are sprinkled throughout the list of honorees. Four Turks were named first-team All-VBL; two more made the second team. They are listed as follows:

First-Team Designees:

SP Justin Camp–

Camp was showered with accolades after his incredible regular season and rightfully so. Camp was one of just four VBL pitchers to tab six wins during the regular season; he’s also credited with the Southern All-Star Team’s win. He finished ninth in the league with 45 strikeouts, and a 1.37 ERA gave him the fifth-best average. Camp, who is the second straight Turks ace from Auburn (following in 2012 Dillon Ortman’s footsteps) was named the VBL Pitcher of the Year in addition to his first-team honors.

Camp pitched 59.0 innings, the second most of any pitcher in the league.
3B Thomas Smith–

The guy who colloquially goes by “Smithy” in and around Veterans Memorial Park finished the year on a tear. Smith was hitting .289 on June 6, but in the final 16 games of the season, raised his batting average over 40 points. As such, he finished the year with the fourth-best batting average in the league. Over the regular season, he compiled 10 doubles (T-8 with several other players), two home runs (only seven Southern Division players have 3+ home runs) and 23 RBIs (T-10 with Waynesboro’s Tyler Bocock, and just one behind ninth place teammate Mike Warren). He took 22 walks, which is a top-10 league number. Still, he did finish the season trailing three players in batting average, one of whom was…
OF Eric Kalbfleisch–

“Fish” finished the season batting .354, third in the league and 13 points above Smith. Smith tabbed a couple more doubles, walked more, and struck out less, but Eric totaled 11 more hits in 26 more at bats, a .423 differential that pushed his average higher.

Coincidentally, both scored exactly 23 more runs.
SP Connor Kaden–

How do you get out of an ace’s shadow? Dance before the start of every game. And oh yeah, lead the league in strikeouts.

Kaden was the second guy in the rotation who most teams would kill to have as their own ace. He battled back and forth with Front Royal’s Jordan DeLorenzo most of the season for the K-Master title, and finished the season with 69 — five more than his Cardinal counterpart.

Kaden finished the regular season with five wins, which only 10 other pitchers in the league (two of them Turks) can claim.

 

Second-Team Designees:

2B Andy Perez–

Perez finished the season with a .294 batting average, but had an OBP north of .420. He accrued 48 hits (11XBH’s), walked 29 times, hit 20 RBIs and scored 32 times — 13.7 percent of the team’s seasonal offense.

Perez also led the league in stolen bases, finishing the season with 30 freebies.
RP Logan Onda–

Onda did a little bit of everything for the Turks. Head coach Bob Wease named him one of his best spot starters, making 11 appearances and starring in four of them. He finished with a very quiet 42 strikeouts — just three less than Camp — and a more-than-respectable 2.63 ERA. He earned a decision in 7 of his 11 mound appearances, finishing 4-2 with 1 save by the end of the regular season.

 

 

Harrisonburg and the Staunton Braves both have six players honored on either the first or second All-Valley teams, more than any of the other 10 teams.