LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - Centenary College's Chris Zapata and Cody Crowder have been selected to the D3Baseball.com Preseason All-America team after helping the Gents to their first Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference tournament title in 2017.
Zapata earned first-team honors, while Crowder was named to the second team.
Zapata, a senior catcher from Saratoga, Calif., earns the recognition after earning D3baseball.com first team All-America honors last season. During his junior season, he was named the 2017 SCAC Player of the Year. Zapata tallied 71 RBI’s and averaged 158 RBI’s per game. He also led the conference with 131 total bases. He easily led the conference in both home runs (12) and slugging percentage (.732), and finished second on the team and third in the conference with a .391 batting average. Zapata broke the single-season Centenary record for RBI’s while finishing fourth in slugging percentage and fifth in total bases in the season annals.
Crowder, a sophomore designated hitter from Shepherd, Texas, received the honor for his first time after a successful freshman campaign. In the 2017 season, Crowder racked up 65 hits, which ranked second in the league, including 14 doubles and five triples, both marks ranked third in the conference. Crowder also notched 45 runs and 41 RBI's while hitting .382, the fourth-best batting average in the SCAC. Defensively, Crowder had a perfect fielding percentage.
Crowder, Zapata and the rest of the Gents will kick off their season February 2 at home against Pacific (Ore.).
To see the full D3baseball.com release, click here.
