DALLAS (NCBWA) Student-athletes from institutions in the American Southwest Conference and Southern Athletic Association logged remarkable performances on the diamond in February and took home the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association Div. III Awards for the month of February. To provide flexibility with the ongoing pandemic, the decision was reached by the Div. III selection committee to encompass all the games in February for this week's selections. We will resume our traditional weekly selections and weekly submission criteria next week with the uptick in Div. III teams slated to begin action this week.
Hitter of the Month: Senior catcher Ty Morgan is a big reason why Louisiana College is off to a 6-2 start. Morgan hit .538 (14-for-26) in February with four runs, five doubles, a triple, two homers, and 12 RBI. He's thrown out 50 percent (3-of-6) of base runners trying to steal. Morgan has five multi-hit games and already has a trio of three-hit outings. He blasted two homers while going 3-for-4 with five RBI in a season-opening 12-6 win over Alma College.
Honorable Mention Hitter: Tyler Calvert, Sr., 1B, Berry College Played and started in all 12 games for the Vikings. Hit .383 (18-for-48) on the month with 24 RBI, six homers, three doubles, and two triples. Calvert's slugging .915 on the year, has only struck out twice, and recently became the all-time Div. III-era leader in homers at Berry.
Pitcher of the Month: Belhaven University sophomore right-hander Brett Sanchez is off to a 3-0 start, and he hasn't allowed an earned run over 24 innings. Sanchez has allowed two unearned runs, has struck out 26 batters, and is holding the opposition to a tidy .161 average. He opened the season with nine strikeouts in eight innings of work during a 9-1 win over Piedmont College. He went the distance en route to a three-hit shutout during a 5-0 win over Centenary College of Louisiana and struck out eight. Most recently, Sanchez fanned nine over seven innings in a 17-2 win against Hardin-Simmons University.
Honorable Mention Pitcher: Quinn Gudaitis, Sr., Illinois Wesleyan University Was exceptional on the mound in Illinois Wesleyan's 12-1 season-opening win over Greenville University on February 26. Gudaitis struck out 10, one off his career-high, while allowing just two hits over six innings of work. For the season, he leads the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin in earned run average (0.00), opponent batting average (.100), strikeouts (10), batters struck out looking (6), and runs allowed (0).
Rookie of the Month: Berry College's Levi Cloud currently leads the Vikings with a .432 average (16-for-37). Cloud, who has started 10 of 12 games, has five doubles and eight RBI on the year. Defensively, the third baseman sports a .950 fielding percentage with one error in 20 chances.
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2021 NCBWA Division III Players of the Week:
Week ending March 7: Caleb Durbin, Washington U. (Hitter); Patrick O'Rourke, Berry (Pitcher); Amani Jones, Stevenson (Rookie)
· Week ending March 14: Philip Mahlik, Kean (Hitter); Ryan Behling, North Central (Pitcher); Jacob Cyrus, Illinois Wesleyan (Rookie)
· Week ending March 21: Dane Pedersen, Louisiana College (Hitter); Thomas Gallant, Mount Union (Pitcher); Nolan Sparks, Rochester (Rookie)
· Week ending March 28: Jack Hollinshead, Wittenberg (Hitter); Sam Westermeyer, St. Olaf (Pitcher); Cam Seymour, Southern Maine (Rookie)
· Week ending April 4: Catcher Cumming, Penn State Altoona (Hitter); Chris Chiriboga, St. Thomas (Pitcher); Jake Freed, Oberlin (Rookie)
· Week ending April 11: Adam Zebrowski, St. John Fisher (Hitter); Nolan Rowan, Kean (Pitcher); Amani Jones, Stevenson (Rookie)
· Week ending April 18: Dougie DelaCruz, Mitchell (Hitter); Michael Vallone, DePauw (Pitcher); Owen Robbins, Mitchell (Rookie)
· Week ending April 25: Daniel Coleman, SUNY-Cortland (Hitter); Brock Weirather, Grinnell (Pitcher); James Ward Jr., St. John Fisher (Rookie)
· Week ending May 2: Jake Reinhardt, North Park (Hitter); Weston Lombard, Gustavus Adolphus (Pitcher); Jake Hillard, Penn State Altoona (Rookie)
· Week ending May 9: Adam Zebrowski, St. John Fisher (Hitter); James Palmer, Wisconsin-Stout (Pitcher); James Murphy, Adam Zebrowski (Rookie)
2021 NCBWA Division III Players of the Month:
February: Ty Morgan, Louisiana College (Hitter); Brett Sanchez, Belhaven (Pitcher); Levi Cloud, Berry (Rookie)