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College  | Story  | 4/6/2017

Midseason College Honors

Patrick Ebert      Mike Rooney      Jheremy Brown     
Photo: Louisville Sports Information




Perfect Game Top 25 | Player/Pitcher of the Week
College Spotlight | College Player Database

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


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