Roseville High School baseball players, senior Lucas Gather and freshman Josh Alger, played baseball for highly competitive teams this summer in hopes of extending their baseball careers beyond high school.

Gather, who is returning for his third year on the varsity team at Roseville, played for Oakland Area Code – an organization that pulls the best 200 high school players from the nation and forms eight teams based on where the players live.

The eight teams are named after MLB teams and the Northern California team is named after the Oakland Athletics. The annual tournament is held at Blair Field at Long Beach State and scouts from all 30 major league teams attend.

Gather thinks the experience was good for him because of the exposure he got to some of the best
high school players in the nation.

“Our tournament was a five-day showcase thing, and tons of scouts, recruiters, and colleges were there,” Gather said. “The level of competition I was playing against was really challenging and it helped me get better at my game.”

Gather, who has verbally committed to play baseball at UC Berkeley, hit .351 and posted an ERA of 2.44 for Roseville last season. He thinks the Area Code experience will prepare him for the upcoming season at Roseville, as well as the work he did for Cal over the summer.

“I did a lot of stuff up in this area with Cal,” Gather said. “I had to face some of the top hitters in the country and it was really good for me to help prepare for this year.”

Alger played with the 14u U.S. National Team Development Program this summer. Alger was invited to a tryout in Arizona. Then he flew out to North Carolina , performing in intrasquad games and showcasing his skills in front of amateur and professional scouting communities. The top 40 players from Alger’s class were also flown out to North Carolina to participate in the program.

Alger thinks it was a good experience for him because he got to perform in front of a lot of scouts and compete at a high level.

“We got to play games,” Alger said. “Most of the coaches that were there helping out are college coaches.”

If he makes the 15u team next summer, Alger will be given the opportunity to travel to Taiwan and play against 15u teams from other countries. Similar to the baseball classic, teams from different countries play in a tournament until one country’s team comes out on top.