Napleton, Demurias earn Atlantic League weekly awards after dominant weeks

Luke Napleton and Eddy Demurias turned the final week of June into a showcase for two very different kinds of dominance, and the Atlantic League rewarded both on June 30. Napleton of the High Point Rockers was named Player of the Week for June 23-29, while Hagerstown right-hander Eddy Demurias took Pitcher of the Week after a pair of outings that helped push the Flying Boxcars deeper into first-place position.

Napleton’s week was built on relentless production in a six-game series against Southern Maryland. He hit .500 with 12 hits in 24 at-bats, reached base in bunches and had at least two hits in five of the six games. He led the league for the week with five home runs, 12 runs scored and 12 RBIs, and he did it with both power and volume: a pair of two-homer games, a pair of three-hit games and a hitting streak that stretched to 12 games. High Point said Napleton’s fifth homer in three games came in a 12-3 win over Southern Maryland, the kind of burst that can change the shape of a lineup for a week and keep a hitter in the center of the Atlantic League conversation into July.

The performance also fit the profile the Rockers believed they were getting back before the season. Manager Jamie Keefe had identified Napleton as one of the league’s top hitters in 2025, and High Point brought him back for 2026 after his contract had been transferred to the Minnesota Twins organization on May 9, 2025, when he was hitting .571 early in that season. This week only sharpened the case that Napleton is more than a hot hand. He is already producing at a level that can drive a club’s offense through a pennant race.

Demurias answered with a week of efficient run prevention that looked just as sturdy. He went 2-0 with a 1.80 ERA and 14 strikeouts in 15 innings, allowing only four hits and holding Lexington scoreless in 14 of those 15 innings. On June 23, he threw eight shutout innings in a 7-0 win at Lexington. Five days later, he followed with seven more innings in a 7-3 win over the Legends. Hagerstown’s June 23 victory moved the Flying Boxcars to 35-20, and the June 28 win came in the same stretch that saw the club clinch the Atlantic League North Division first-half title and its first playoff berth in franchise history.

Southern Maryland also clinched the South Division first-half championship on June 28, leaving the weekly awards to land in a week when the first-half races were effectively settled. That is what gives Napleton and Demurias more weight than a simple honor roll mention: one was carrying a lineup with the sort of power that can reshape an order, and the other was stabilizing a contender with innings that barely left Lexington a chance.