MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – Trinity University's baseball team is currently ranked No. 7 in D3baseball.com/NCBWA's preseason Top 25. Trinity also sits at No. 27 in the Collegiate Baseball Preseason Poll.
The seventh-ranked Tigers head into the 2016 campaign behind head coach Tim Scannell who was named ABCA/Diamond NCAA Division III West Region Coach of the Year after leading Trinity to its first NCAA Divison III Championship and a 40-14 record. The historic season included the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference title after defeating Centenary College en route to tying a school record 40 victories.
Last week, D3baseball.com named senior pitcher Ryan Gray to the Preseason All-America first team. Gray posted a perfect 8-0 mark with a 2.00 ERA and a team-best 75 strikeouts. Behind Gray and the rest of the rotation, Trinity posted a conference-best 3.02 ERA and held opponents to a .227 batting average.
Trinity's bats were also a major factor in the team's success. Senior catcher Drew Butler posted a conference-leading .398 average, and the rest of the Tigers contributed to push Trinity to the top of the conference leaderboards on offense with a .328 average, .454 slugging-percentage, 118 doubles, 351 RBI and 191 bases-on-balls.
The Tigers open the 2016 campaign on February 12-14 at the Clements FLuid Classic at the University of Texas-Tyler.
