Eight from New England named Preseason All-Americans by D3Baseball.com

2013 D3Baseball.com Preseason All-Americans

Led by seniors Conor Bierfeldt (Western Connecticut), Mike Rubino (Western New England) and Chad Rafferty (St. Joseph’s (Maine)), eight New England players were named D3Baseball.com Preseason All-Americans on Monday.

Rubino, Bierfeldt and Rafferty were all first team selections after earning All-America honors at the end of last season. Bierfeldt was a first team selection last June and is coming off a season in which he hit .430 with 16 doubles, 10 home runs and drove in 50 runs. Rubino was an honorable mention selection after hitting .376 with 17 doubles and 50 RBI. One of the top returning pitchers in New England, Rafferty was a third team choice last spring after going 10-0 with a 1.71 ERA and 74 strikeouts in 68.1 innings.

Seniors Tim Clark (Western New England) and Frank Holbrook (Wheaton) were named to the second team. A second team selection last season, Clark hit .428 with 80 hits and 45 RBI. Holbrook is coming off a season in which he led the Lyons to the national championship game with a 10-0 record and a 1.38 ERA in 84.2 innings.

Sophomores Apolinar De la Cruz (Wheaton) and Sean Meekins (Trinity), and senior Todd Tompkins (Becker) were all named to the honorable mention team. De la Cruz hit .376 with 10 doubles and a team-high 50 RBI in his first season with the Lyons. Meekins went 7-0 with a 1.90 ERA in 42.2 innings in his first year with the Bantams. Tompkins hit .492 with 12 doubles, six triples, five home runs, drove in 42, scored 53 and stole 26 bases on his way to Third Team All-America honors last spring.

 

January musings: Who’s the best hitter?

As I sit at my desk in the middle of January I can’t help but think about the upcoming season. Today my thoughts wandered to some of the best hitters in New England. But who is the best hitter? Well, I came up with four guys that should top any list put out there.

1. Sean Ryan | SR | Wheaton College

Ryan finished second in the nation last season with 86 hits, leading the Lyons with a .384 average and a .531 slugging percentage. He collected 18 doubles, three triples, three home runs, drove in 37 and scored a team-high 49 runs.

2. Tucker White | SR | Southern Maine

An ABCA/Rawlings and D3baseball.com Second Team All-American in 2012, White put up some of the most gaudy numbers in the country last spring. He hit .392 with 10 doubles, a school-record 10 triples and seven home runs. In addition, he drove in a team-high 49 runs and scored 48 others.

3. Conor Bierfeldt | SR | Western Connecticut

Bierfeldt was named First Team All-America by both the ABCA and D3baseball.com following one of the most dominating offensive seasons in school history last spring. He hit .430 with 16 doubles, six triples and 10 home runs. Bierfeldt drove in 50 runs and scored 48 others for the Colonials. He was named the LEC Player of the Year, NEIBA Player of the Year and the ECAC Player of the Year.

4. Tim Clark | SR | Western New England

Clark is coming off an outstanding junior campaign in which he hit .428 (80 hits) and posted team-highs in slugging (.551) and on-base percentage (.464). In addition, Clark added 10 doubles, five triples, drove in 45 runs and scored 39. He was named First Team All-America by the ABCA and Second Team All-America by D3baseball.com.

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Two teams nationally ranked; two players earn national recognition

Eastern Connecticut and Wheaton are both ranked nationally again this week in the D3baseball.com/NCBWA national poll and Tim Clark and Erik Bergstrom were both named to the D3baseball.com Team of the Week.

The Warriors moved up three spots with a 4-0 week and now sit at fifth in the nation. Wheaton dropped three spots, from seventh to 10th, after a pair of conference losses to Babson over the weekend. St. Joseph’s (ME), Tufts and Amherst are all receiving votes in this week’s poll.

Individually, Clark and Bergstrom both put together monster weeks to help their respective teams go a combined 12-0. The starting second baseman for Western New England, Clark hit .625 last week with six multi-hit games and handled 39 chances without an error as the Golden Bears went a perfect 8-0. Clark was also named the Commonwealth Coast Conference Player of the Week.

Bergstrom helped Keene St. go 4-0 last week, hitting .529 with 13 RBI. He collected multiple hits in all four games and was also named the Little East Conference Player of the Week.

D3baseball.com/NCBWA Top 25

D3baseball.com Team of the Week