Loggers Luensmann, Fields soaking up Northwoods League experience after limited freshman seasons
The Loggers have most of their elite talent in La Crosse now that college baseball season is coming to a close, so it’s time to get to know some of these guys.
We first set our sites on a pair of University of South Carolina athletes: 6-foot-6 Pitcher Travis Luensmann and outfielder Brandon Fields.
Both were part of one of the best 2020 recruiting classes in the nation, but after one season, they’re leaving South Carolina.
Luensmann pitched just two innings this NCAA season. Fields is an MLB top 150 prospect who at one time was also going to play football for the Gamecocks, but wound up with just 6 total at-bats.
“I was going in there pretty polished,” Luensmann said. “I had a lot of MLB people looking at me and I had in-home visits and stuff like that. The stuff played at the next level, and they were trying to change a lot of it [mechanically].”
“They did tell me when you come in you have to work for everything you get and everything you do,” Fields said. “I think there were a lot of things I guess they weren’t looking for.”
The Pennsylvania native Luensmann is officially headed to Penn State in the fall while the Florida native Fields is still talking with D1 teams.
So this summer in La Crosse is huge for both of them since they’ll get a lot more playing time, not to mention getting the Wisconsin experience.
“Since COVID and obviously not throwing at South Carolina it’s just been really tough for me to get back into my groove of just throwing seven innings every weekend,” Luensmann said. “Just getting back to my old self, getting everything back and fine-tune, and just throwing the way I want to throw.”
“Just playing every day,” said Fields. “This I’d probably say is the closest thing to a minor league schedule, so just getting a little taste of that.”
(“Have you ever been to Wisconsin before?”)
“I have not. They told me to try the cheese curds. I’d give them an 11, an 11 out of 10.”
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