Midseason College Honors

Patrick Ebert

Mike Rooney Jheremy Brown

Photo: Louisville Sports Information

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For as many legitimate options as there were for the 2017 Perfect Game/Rawlings Midseason Player, Pitcher, Freshman and Coach of the Year awards, the PG college staff pretty quickly and unanimously agreed on the four eventual winners.

The Player of the Year honor goes to Louisville's Brendan McKay, who has somewhat of an "unfair" advantage in that he hits and pitches at a high level, and up until a couple of weeks ago his batting average was higher than his ERA, which is hard to even conceive. However, that rare talent is the reason why he is the best player in all of college baseball, which we don't believe is an opinion but rather a statement of fact, and he has led the second-ranked Cardinals to an impressive start to open 2017 by dominating both on the mound and at the plate.

Luke Heimlich, the Midseason Pitcher of the Year, has been equally dominant as the staff ace for the top-ranked Beavers. He has delivered numerous key outings so far this season, mixing and matching between his low-90s fastball and the rest of his four-pitch repertoire to successfully navigate through dangerous lineups, including an impressive start to the Pac-12 schedule the past three weeks. The competitive lefthander has only allowed three runs in seven starts, as four of the games he started (none of which he finished) resulted in a shutout and he went the distance last Friday in a 3-1 win over Stanford.

The Midseason Freshman of the Year is Braden Shewmake, who stepped onto Texas A&M's campus in College Station with quite a bit of fanfare, and lived up to his promise with a strong showing in the fall. He opened this year as the starting second baseman for the Aggies and has continued to hit at a high level, picking up where SEC Player of the Year Boomer White left off from a season ago. With a lightning quick bat and rangy defensive skills that likely will allow him to slide across the second base bag to shortstop in the years to come, Shewmake could be a college baseball star in the making.

Dave Tollett of Florida Gulf Coast was one of the easiest choices as the PG/Rawlings Midseason Coach of the Year. Tollett has guided the Eagles, who opened the season unranked, to a 24-6 overall record and are ranked 16th as of Monday, April 3. FGCU went 17-1 in the month of March, which included series sweeps of UNC Wilmington, Rutgers and Jackson State, as well as midweek victories over Florida (twice), Florida State, South Florida and Miami. Tollett is the only coach FGCU has ever had (baseball began in 2002), and he has guided the Eagles to the Atlantic Sun Championship four times in 15 years.

The Midseason Team of the Year is the most obvious as Oregon State is currently ranked No. 1 with a near-flawless 25-1 record heading into their fourth Pac-12 series of the year as they host the reigning conference champion Utah Utes. Head Coach Pat Casey has kept his squad hungry (and probably a little bit mad) looking for redemption after missing the 2016 postseason despite positing a respectable 35-19 overall record. The Beavers loudest statement thus far came two weeks ago when they swept the 2016 College World Series runner-up Arizona Wildcats.

Midseason Perfect Game/Rawlings College Baseball Awards:

Player of the Year: Brendan McKay, lhp/1b, Louisville
Pitcher of the Year: Luke Heimlich, lhp, Oregon State
Freshman of the Year: Braden Shewmake, 2b, Texas A&M
Coach of the Year: Dave Tollett, Florida Gulf Coast
Team of the Year: Oregon State Beavers

Midseason Perfect Game/Rawlings College Baseball All-American Teams
Statistics for games played through Monday, April 3

First Team

Pos.	Player	School	AVG	OBP	SLG	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
C	Joey Bart	Georgia Tech	.345	.419	.727	24	38	9	0	11	31	2
1B	Ben Fisher	Eastern Kentucky	.412	.500	.895	43	47	10	0	15	44	0
2B	Jake Scheiner	Houston	.415	.467	.821	21	44	11	1	10	33	1
3B	Jake Burger	Missouri State	.387	.473	.774	30	41	8	0	11	31	2
SS	Kevin Merrell	South Florida	.427	.504	.641	29	44	7	3	3	18	16
OF	Brent Rooker	Mississippi State	.422	.511	.890	24	46	18	3	9	43	14
OF	Keston Hiura	UC Irvine	.391	.505	.759	23	34	14	0	6	21	1
OF	Jared Oliva	Arizona	.349	.421	.613	30	37	12	2	4	35	6
DH	Ryan Flick	Tennessee Tech	.393	.475	.718	36	46	17	0	7	32	1
UT	Brendan McKay	Louisville	.417	.532	.679	24	35	5	1	5	20	0

Pos.	Player	School	ERA	W-L	CG	SV	IP	H	SO	BB	BAA
SP	Luke Hemlich	Oregon State	0.52	5-0	1	0	52	26	55	10	.145
SP	J.B. Bukauskas	North Carolina	0.96	5-0	0	0	47	24	70	11	.151
SP	Steven Gingery	Texas Tech	0.92	6-0	0	0	48.2	26	54	13	.156
SP	Jared Poche	Louisiana State	1.15	6-1	1	0	47	29	31	10	.178
SP	J.C. Cloney	Arizona	1.75	6-0	0	0	46.1	33	34	9	.195
RP	Nick Sandlin	Southern Miss	0.00	5-0	0	3	24	9	37	10	.114
RP	T.J. Sikkema	Missouri	0.47	5-0	0	3	38	18	49	8	.143
UT	Brendan McKay	Louisville	1.18	4-1	0	0	38	25	57	9	.187

Second Team

Pos.	Player	School	AVG	OBP	SLG	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
C	Grant Koch	Arkansas	.319	.423	.604	20	29	6	1	6	27	3
1B	Gavin Sheets	Wake Forest	.310	.387	.621	30	36	7	1	9	43	0
2B	Braden Shewmake	Texas A&M	.365	.397	.563	24	46	12	2	3	34	8
3B	Taylor Schwaner	Southeastern Louisiana	.390	.500	.740	27	39	6	4	7	39	8
SS	Nick Madrigal	Oregon State	.406	.470	.574	25	41	8	0	3	17	8
OF	Jeren Kendall	Vanderbilt	.325	.418	.667	33	39	5	3	10	29	10
OF	Griffin Conine	Duke	.322	.430	.619	33	38	10	2	7	34	7
OF	Tyler Adkison	San Diego State	.437	.544	.859	20	31	7	1	7	28	3
DH	Charlie Madden	Mercer	.312	.445	.752	33	34	12	0	12	34	0
UT	Adam Haseley	Virginia	.398	.500	.704	31	43	7	1	8	25	7

Pos.	Player	School	ERA	W-L	CG	SV	IP	H	SO	BB	BAA
SP	David Peterson	Oregon	2.14	6-1	0	0	46.1	41	66	4	.233
SP	Jake Irvin	Oklahoma	1.16	5-0	0	0	31	21	42	8	.189
SP	Kutter Crawford	Florida Gulf Coast	1.04	5-0	0	1	34.2	20	49	11	.163
SP	Jared Janczak	Texas Christian	2.05	5-0	0	0	48.1	22	50	12	.135
SP	Gunner Leger	Louisiana	1.27	5-1	0	0	42.2	27	48	11	.186
RP	Nate Harris	Louisiana Tech	0.76	3-0	1	7	35.1	21	50	3	.163
RP	Logan Salow	Kentucky	0.41	0-2	0	6	22	11	31	6	.151
UT	Adam Haseley	Virginia	3.43	4-1	0	0	42	42	31	10	.264