SEGUIN, Texas -- Jeremy Wolf of Trinity University was voted the Offensive Player-of-the-Year and Nathan Malinovsky of Texas Lutheran University was selected the league's Pitcher-of-the-Year in exclusive 2016 all-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) voting by the conference's head coaches. Complete Release
In that same balloting, Malinovsky was also named the conference's Freshman-of-the-Year, while TLU's head coach Greg Burnett was selected SCAC Coach-of-the-Year.
As for the All-SCAC team, Trinity earned a league-high eight First Team selections while Texas Lutheran University followed with three. When totaling combined First and Second Team selections, the league's top four teams dominated the balloting as Trinity had 12 honorees, Texas Lutheran had eight, Centenary had seven and Southwestern had three.
Wolf, a senior outfielder from Scottsdale, Ariz., is currently leading the SCAC in batting average (.435), hits (67), doubles (23), home runs (11), runs batted in (55), total bases (127) and slugging percentage (.825). His 23 doubles are already tied for the sixth-most by a player in a SCAC single-season and his 234 career hits currently ranks as the 14th-most in league history. He is also in the top 10 in the league in runs scored (47 – second), triples (2 – eighth), walks (23 – fourth) and on-base percentage (.522 – second). A three-time All-SCAC First Team selection, Wolf was First Team All-West Region in 2015 and the Most Valuable Player at the NCAA West Regional where the Tigers clinched the program's first-ever Division III World Series appearance. This season, he was a two-time SCAC Player of the Week as well as a two-time honoree on the D3baseball.com National Team of the Week.
With the honor, Wolf becomes the sixth student-athlete from Trinity to be named the league's Offensive Player-of-the-Year and the first since former All-America outfielder Pat Hirschberg earned the distinction in 2013. Wolf received five votes in the Player-of-the-Year balloting while senior third baseman Keaton Bohrmann of Texas Lutheran and junior outfielder Michael Schimpf of Centenary College received one vote each.
Malinovsky, a freshman right-hander from New Braunfels, is the first player in SCAC history to earn both Freshman- and Pitcher-of-the-Year honors in the same season. He is currently leading the league in earned run average (2.19), complete games (5) and shutouts (2) and sports an 8-1 mark heading into this weekend's conference tournament. The eight wins are the second-best in the SCAC as are his 78.0 innings pitched. Malinovsky has struck out 55 batters (third in the SCAC) this season and opponents are managing just a .221 batting average. The freshman earned SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Week honors last week when he pitched the Bulldogs to a share of the SCAC regular-season title by tossing a complete-game, four-hit shutout at Southwestern.
In addition to making league history by earning both Freshman- and Pitcher-of-the-Year, Malinovsky is the first Texas Lutheran player to earn a SCAC baseball postseason major award. The Bulldogs joined the SCAC prior to the 2014 season.
In earning Pitcher-of-the-Year honors, Malinovksy received four votes from the coaches. Sophomore right-hander Kaleb Kirk of Centenary College picked up two votes while junior left-hander Chris Tate of Trinity received the remaining first-place vote.
Malinovsky earned five first-place votes in the Freshman-of-the-Year balloting. First-year right-hander Thomas Martin of University of Dallas and first-year left-hander Tyler Polasek of Southwestern University split the remaining two first-place votes.
Greg Burnett, in his 18th season with the Texas Lutheran program and ninth as the team's head coach, is the third winningest baseball coach in school history (242-139 heading into this weekend's SCAC tournament) and his .635 winning percentage is the second-highest in school history (trailing only current Athletics Director and former head coach Bill Miller). Burnett has led the Bulldogs to postseason appearances in each of the last seven seasons, including a trip to the SCAC championship final in TLU's inaugural season in the conference in 2014. This year's squad won a share of the regular season conference title with a 14-4 league mark and earned the top seed and hosting privileges for the 2016 SCAC Baseball Tournament. In TLU's three seasons in the SCAC, Burnett has led his squad to a cumulative 38-16 league mark (.704) – the second-best mark of any team in the league over that stretch. The COTY honor is the first for Burnett since his Bulldogs joined the SCAC prior to the 2014 season but he and his staff were recognized as West Division Coaching Staff of the Year in 2009 as members of the American Southwest Conference.
Burnett received four votes from his peers in earning SCAC Coach-of-the-Year honors, narrowly outnumbering Trinity's Tim Scannell who received the remaining three votes.
2016 SCAC Player-of-the-Year
Jeremy Wolf, Trinity University, Senior, OF, Scottsdale, Ariz.
2016 SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Year
Nathan Malinovsky, Texas Lutheran University, Freshman, RHP, New Braunfels, Texas
2016 SCAC Freshman-of-the-Year
Nathan Malinovsky, Texas Lutheran University, Freshman, RHP, New Braunfels, Texas
2016 SCAC Coach-of-the-Year
Greg Burnett, Texas Lutheran University, 14-4 SCAC / 25-13 overall – top seed for SCAC Tournament
For the complete 2016 SCAC All-Conference baseball team, click here.