May 4, 1999

Righthanded pitcher Brandon Webb and catcher John Wilson are among 40collegiate freshmen and sophomores invited to the USA Baseball tryouts inTucson, Arizona.

Tryoutsare scheduled to begin on June 8 at Hi Corbett Field, spring traininghome of the Colorado Rockies, and the travel list will be reduced to 22players. The team will play in a US-West sponsored Western United StatesTour and will travel to Japan to play the Japan Collegiate All-Star Teambefore ending the summer in the NBC World Series in Wichita, Kan., onAugust 6-17.

“I thinkit is a tremendous honor for both of these young men to have beeninvited,” said UK coach and USA Baseball pitching coach Keith Madison.”Both of these players certainly have the ability and the dedication ittakes to make a team like this.”

Webb iscurrently 3-5 on the season with a 5.68 earned run average. The Ashland,Ky., native picked up a win on Sunday, May 2, in UKs sweep against theSouth Carolina Gamecocks. The sophomore is currently third on the teamwith 75 strikeouts in 76.0 innings pitched.

Wilsonleads the Southeastern Conference in home runs after belting his19
^th
round tripper of the season inSaturdays 11-10 win in Columbia, S.C. The Northridge, Calif., native hasmoved from third base to catcher this season for the first time since hislittle league days, and has .972 fielding average. He is second on theteam in batting average, hitting .354 and has driven in 46 runs on theseason.

Madisonwill be working under Mark Johnson, the head coach at Texas A&M. RodSoesbe of UNLV and Jerry Kindall of USA Baseball round out the coachingstaff.