SAN ANTONIO, Texas - Trevor Keele of the University of Dallas was voted the Offensive Player-of-the-Year and Zack Speer of Trinity University was selected the league’s Pitcher-of-the-Year in exclusive 2014 all-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) voting by the conference’s head coaches. Complete Release
In that same balloting, Aaron Quintanilla of
Centenary College was named the conference’s
Freshman-of-the-Year, while Trinity head coach Tim Scannell was
selected SCAC Coach-of-the-Year for the fifth consecutive year.
As for the All-SCAC team, Trinity earned a league-high 11 First
Team selections. Texas Lutheran University followed with eight
selections while Centenary had six.
Keele, a junior first baseman from Edgewood, Texas, is currently
leading the SCAC in batting average (.400), hits (54) and runs
batted in (46) and is also in the top 10 in the league in doubles
(7 – ninth), triples (3 – fourth), total bases (70
– fourth), on-base percentage (.456 – third) and
slugging percentage (.519 – sixth). A 2013 First Team
All-SCAC performer, Keele drove in a conference 2014 single-game
high six RBIs in a March 15 loss to Centenary. He started an
11-game hitting streak that same day which lasted until April
5.
The first student-athlete from the University of Dallas, to win an
Offensive or Defensive conference POTY award since the institution
joined the SCAC in 2011, Keefe received five votes in the
Player-of-the-Year balloting. Aaron Quintanilla of Centenary
received the remaining two votes.
Speer, a junior right-hander from Bellaire, Texas, picked up where
he left off last season when he was named First Team All-SCAC,
First Team D3baseball.com All-Region, Second Team ABCA All-Region
and a D3baseball.com Honorable Mention All-American. Heading into
this weekend’s conference tournament, he leads the SCAC in
wins (8) and strikeouts (52) and is second in ERA (1.99) and fifth
in innings pitched (63.1) – one of just two players in the
SCAC who ranks in the top five of all four categories. Speer earned
wins against five of the league’s six other conference teams
this year and his 17 wins the last two seasons are the most by any
pitcher over that stretch.
In a tightly contested vote, Speer earned four votes for SCAC
Pitcher-of-the-Year while Dwayne Snider of Texas Lutheran received
three votes. The award marks the fourth consecutive year that a
Trinity hurler has won or shared SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Year honors
and the ninth time in program history.
Quintanilla, a first-year shortstop from Houston, Texas, leads all
first-year conference players and is ranked in the top 10 among all
players in hitting (.377), on-base percentage (.466) and stolen
bases (17). He was also fourth in the league in triples (3) and
walks (21) and eighth in both hits (46) and RBIs (26). A unanimous
First Team All-SCAC selection, Quintanilla hit safely in 28 of the
34 games in which he had an official at-bat and enters this
weekend’s SCAC tournament with the longest active hitting
streak in the conference – 15 games.
Quintanilla received five votes in the SCAC Freshman-of-the-Year
balloting. First-year pitchers Kevin Flores of Trinity and Jacob
Kendra of Southwestern received one vote each.
Tim Scannell, the winningest Trinity baseball coach in history,
has amassed a career record of 515-206 (heading into this
weekend’s SCAC tournament) since taking over as head coach in
1999, including 222 conference wins (second-most in SCAC history).
He has guided the Tigers to eight trips to the NCAA postseason
tournament (including four in a row from 2010-2013), and to seven
SCAC championships. On five occasions – in 2002, 2004, 2008,
2012 and 2013 – the Tigers advanced to the NCAA Regional
final, just one game shy of qualifying for the Division III College
World Series. Trinity, currently 30-8, has been ranked as high as
No. 1 in the nation this season, and the team’s win total
marks the 13th time the Tigers have achieved a 30-plus win
season in the past 16 years. For his efforts, Coach Scannell was
named SCAC Coach of the Year for the ninth time, and for the fifth
consecutive year, making him the most decorated baseball coach in
conference history.
Scannell received five votes each from his peers in the SCAC
Coach-of-the-Year balloting. Greg Burnett of Texas Lutheran and
R.J. Thomas of Southwestern University each received one vote.
2014 SCAC Player-of-the-Year
Trevor Keele, University of Dallas, Junior, 1B,
Edgewood, Texas
2014 SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Year
Zack Speer, Trinity University, Junior, RHP,
Bellaire, Texas
2014 SCAC Freshman-of-the-Year
Aaron Quintanilla, Centenary College, First-Year,
SS, Houston, Texas
2014 SCAC Coach-of-the-Year
Tim Scannell, Trinity University, 16-2 SCAC / 30-8
overall – ranked fourth in the nation
