Backroads and Ballfields: Surowiec, Dickerson Power a Big Friday of Fall Ball
By Daniel Wilson ·
Friday, Oct. 16, gave us four college fall exhibitions worth a look: Florida over USF, NC State over North Carolina at the DBAP, South Carolina over Charleston at Segra Park and Kentucky over Indiana in a 12-inning game at Bart Kaufman Field. I've kept this to players eligible for the 2027 draft. The numbers come from team recaps, one official box score and one fan live blog, and I'll say which is which. None of these games count, lineups get shuffled and pitchers throw an inning apiece, so one October night can't move a player much.
Florida 10, USF 6
Florida hit five home runs in the first three innings at George M. Steinbrenner Field after a one-hour weather delay, and two juniors hit four of them. Florida didn't post a box score, so these lines come from its recap.
Ethan Surowiec went 2-for-3 with two home runs, three RBI and a walk. Both homers went to the opposite field. The first came back-to-back with Caden McDonald with two outs in the first inning, and the second was a two-run shot in the third. Surowiec sits just outside the top 100 on our 2027 board. He was the only Gator to start all 62 games last spring and hit .317 with 14 doubles, 12 home runs and 63 RBI. He's a 2024 Gulfport (Miss.) High grad who played a season at Ole Miss before Florida, so 2027 is his draft year.
Drew Dickerson was the bigger surprise. He went 2-for-2 with a pair of two-run homers, a walk and a team-high four RBI. The recap called the first one, in the second inning, a moonshot. The second, in the third, was measured at 427 feet. Those were his first two homers as a Gator, unofficial or not. Dickerson transferred in after two seasons at Oklahoma, where he hit nine home runs in 170 at-bats, four of them last spring as a part-time designated hitter on a national championship team. He's a junior now, in the 2027 pool and not on our board. The question for spring is whether he can earn the everyday at-bats he never got in Norman.
McDonald gets a mention for doing it both ways. He went 2-for-3 with that first-inning homer, then pitched a 1-2-3 ninth with a strikeout. He was a redshirt sophomore last spring, so he's 2027-eligible too.
NC State 7, North Carolina 4
The Wolfpack scored five in the seventh to take it. I couldn't find a box score, so this comes from the North Carolina recap. Mandela Browman hit a long two-run homer to left-center for the Tar Heels, but he's a freshman and won't be draft-eligible until 2029, so he stays off this list.
CJ Egrie, a graduate student, hit the first pitch he saw over the Blue Monster to tie the game at 1. Cooper Nicholson, a senior, hit a solo homer to left in the eighth and finished 2-for-4. Devin Russell, a graduate student and catcher, went 2-for-3 with two doubles. All three are 2027-eligible and off our board, so their cases come down to next spring.
South Carolina 8, Charleston 2
This is the one game with an official box score. South Carolina's staff struck out 17 Charleston hitters, a week after striking out 20 against High Point in a 13-inning, 15-2 win on Oct. 9. Nine pitchers split the 17 against Charleston, and nobody had more than three. Against High Point, 13 pitchers threw an inning each. The staff also walked six and threw three wild pitches against Charleston. Sophomores Ryan Brennecke, who struck out the side against High Point, and Colby Richardson won't be eligible until 2028, so I'm leaving them out.
The 2027 name I'd circle is Connor Shouse, a junior who transferred from Texas Tech. He went 2-for-3 with a double and a two-run triple in the third, driving in three. Then he pitched the ninth: no hits, two strikeouts and 21 pitches, with a wild pitch and a hit batter. He also struck out two against High Point, so the two-way role isn't a one-night experiment.
Luke Jones, a junior right-hander who came over from Coastal Carolina, threw the fewest pitches of any South Carolina pitcher. He faced three batters and struck out all three on 12 pitches, 10 of them strikes. It's one inning, and I'll leave it there.
Kentucky 11, Indiana 9 (12 innings)
The only source I found was the live blog at iubase.com, and its writer said partway through that he couldn't keep the stats accurate. Treat these as notes, not a stat line.
Hogan Denny, Indiana's junior catcher and a top-100 name on our 2027 board, had an RBI double and threw out two runners trying to steal, according to the blog. Another throw skipped in the first and let a runner steal second. For a catcher, the throws say more than the double.
Luke Teschke, a redshirt sophomore transfer from Illinois State, gave up a solo homer to Kentucky senior Jayce Tharnish in the third. The blog had Teschke touching 93 before he settled in. Both are 2027-eligible, Teschke by age. Freshman Luke Crighton was part of a stretch where Indiana retired 15 straight Kentucky hitters, but he's years away from the draft.
What I'm Taking From It
Surowiec and Denny were already on our board, and Friday didn't change that. Dickerson and Shouse are the two I'll check on in February: Dickerson to see whether he wins regular at-bats, Shouse to see whether the two-way role lasts. Everyone else gets a note in the file and nothing more until the games count.