SCAC announces 2010 All-SCAC Baseball team

SCAC announces 2010 All-SCAC Baseball team

MILLINGTON, Tenn. – Evan Jones of Trinity University was named the league’s Offensive Player-of-the-Year and Elliott Ross of DePauw University was selected the league’s Pitcher-of-the-Year in exclusive 2010 all-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) voting by the conference’s head coaches. In that same balloting, Bruce Maxwell of Birmingham-Southern College was voted the conference’s Freshman-of-the-Year, while Trinity head coach Tim Scannell and Birmingham-Southern head coach Jan Weisberg split the votes among their peers to share SCAC Coach-of-the-Year honors.

Evan Jones, a senior first baseman from Hillsboro, Calif., led the SCAC during the regular season in batting average (.480), slugging percentage (.888) and on-base percentage (.583). He is also currently in the top six in the conference in hits (60 – fourth), runs batted in (61 – tied for first), runs scored (46 – sixth), home runs (12 – second) and total bases (111 – third). A three-time All-SCAC First Team selection, Jones is the fourth different player from Trinity to win the league’s Offensive Player-of-the-Year and the first since Jason Armstrong in 2004. Jones currently has 210 hits for his career – making him just the 26th player in league history to record 200+ career hits. His 183 career RBIs is currently good for sixth on the all-time SCAC charts.

Elliott Ross, a sophomore left-hander from Cleves, Ohio, is the second DePauw player to earn SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Year in the last three years – following John Tschantz who picked up the honor following the 2008 season. Ross has appeared in 12 games this season, pitching 45.1 innings while allowing just 13 earned runs for a 2.58 ERA (second in the SCAC). He has won a league-high eight games against just one loss while also picking up one save, and opponents have hit a league-low .218 batting average against the southpaw this season. Ross was a perfect 4-0, struck out 18 batters and did not allow an earned run in 18.1 innings of conference competition.

Bruce Maxwell, a first-year first baseman from Toney, Ala., hit .431 in his inaugural season with the Panthers (seventh in the SCAC) with a league-high 15 home runs – the fourth-most in a SCAC single season. In addition, he is currently in the top 10 in the league in slugging percentage (.882 – second), on-base percentage (.500 – tied for seventh), hits (62 – third), runs scored (47 – fifth), runs batted in (61 – tied for first) and doubles (18 – tied for first). Maxwell is the second Birmingham-Southern College player to win the league’s Freshman-of-the-Year award. Sam Hill won the award in the school’s first year in the SCAC in 2008.

Trinity head coach Tim Scannell, in his 12th season as the Tigers’ skipper, was named the SCAC Co-Coach-of-the-Year after leading his squad to a 28-7 regular season mark (13-4 in the SCAC West) heading into the conference tournament. Scannell, who is a five-time SCAC COTY honoree (1999, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010), has the highest winning percentage of any coach in league history (.695) and is among the top 20 of all active NCAA Division III coaches. The team is just two wins shy of earning Scannell his ninth 30+ win season as head coach of the Tigers. Only Jim Page of MillsapS College (with six) has earned more SCAC Baseball Coach-of-the-Year honors than Scannell.

Birmingham-Southern head coach Jan Weisberg has led the Panthers to a 33-4 mark (14-1 in the SCAC East) this season and the program is currently ranked sixth in the nation in both the ABCA and D3baseball.com polls. In his third season on the Hilltop, Weisberg has posted an 81-35 record (through Sunday’s games) in leading the BSC baseball program through the transition to Division III. With two games remaining on its regular season schedule, the team’s 33 victories is already tied for the 19th-most in a SCAC single season, and the Panthers have finished atop the SCAC East each of the last two seasons (tied with DePauw in 2009).

For the complete 2010 SCAC All-Conference baseball team, click here.