DALLAS (NCBWA) University of Kansas relief pitcher Don
Czyz has been named the 2006 winner of the National Collegiate
Baseball Writers Association's Stopper of the Year Award, the
association announced Thursday. The award honors the top relief pitcher
in college baseball.
Czyz
helped guide the Jayhawks (43-25) to their first trip to the NCAA
tournament since 1993, as well as their first ever Big 12 Conference
Tournament Championship. The right-hander from Overland Park, Kansas, was
selected in the 7th round by the Florida Marlins earlier this week in
the Major League Baseball draft.
Czyz leads the NCAA with 19 saves and finished the 2006 season with a
6-0 record and a 1.56 ERA while striking out 60 batters in 63.1 innings.
Czyz is the highest Jayhawk taken in the draft since Brandon O'Neal was
selected by the Anaheim Angels in the sixth round of the 2000 draft.
"I'd like to say congratulations to Don Czyz on a phenomenal year,"
Kansas head coach Ritch Price said. "In my 28 years of coaching, that is
the most dominant performance by a single player and nobody in America
deserved to win this award more than him."
Czyz holds the Big 12 record for appearances (128) while his 19 saves
this season set a new KU record and was one shy of tying the Big 12
single season mark.
Records held by Czyz include:
• Big 12 career appearances: 128
• Kansas career saves: 30
• Kansas single-season saves: 19 (2006)
• Kansas career appearances: 128
• Kansas single-season appearances: 37 (2006)
This is the second annual NCBWA Stopper of the Year Award. Texas' J.
Brent Cox won the inaugural award last season.
The NCBWA, founded in 1962, presents the Dick Howser Trophy to the nation's
top player. It also selects a Division I All-America Team, Division I and
III Players of the Week, Division I District Players of the Year and Division
III Players of the Year.
For more information on the NCBWA Stopper of the Year, contact
Dave Fanucchi at sports.tv
or Russ Anderson at Conference
USA at 214-774-1351.