FOREST CITY, N.C.--Gastonia Grizzlies first baseman David Chester (Pittsburgh) won the 2010 CPL All Star Home Run Derby Monday night, with 11 total home runs, defeating Edenton’s Brian Billigen (Cornell), who won a one-on-one “swing off” against Florence’s Ronnie Freeman (Kennesaw State) for the right to face Chester in the final round.

Chester, the National team’s starting first baseman in Tuesday evening’s All-Star Game, is hitting .333 this season for Gastonia, with three home runs and 19 runs batted in in addition to a .451 slugging percentage and a .871 OPS.  Chester sent some of the evening’s deepest home run balls well over the 25-foot high left field fence at McNair Field in Forest City.  Chester hit three homers in the first round, three in the second and five in the third for a grand total of 31 points (players received three points for home runs hit with a wooden bat and one for homers hit with an aluminum bat).

All but one of Chester’s 11 homers came with a wooden bat.  He led the derby after each of the three rounds.

Billigen just barely made it to the second round, hitting just one home run in the first, but he upped his game in latter rounds, hitting three in both the second and third rounds and outlasting Freeman in between the second and third rounds to advance to the final round.  Billigen finished second on the evening with 17 points on 7 home runs.

Florence’s Freeman hit one home run in the first round and three in the second before coming up empty in the swing off against Billigen.

Edenton’s Jake Magner led the American team in home runs after the first round with two home runs for 6 points, but he fell from competition after hitting just one in the second round.  Thomasville’s Cass Hargis hit three homers in the first round, all with an aluminum bat but the slugger out of Southeastern Louisiana University managed just one home run in the second round.

The Coastal Plain League All-Star Game was part of the 2010 CPL All-Star Game fanfest, which also consisted of a player autograph session and a Rutherford County police vs. fire department softball game.  The 2010 CPL All-Star Game will take place Tuesday, July 20 at McNair Field in Forest City, N.C.

-David Tanklefsky