UT Places Eight on All-SSC Baseball Team
MELBOURNE, Fla. - A total of 37 student-athletes have earned 2015 All-Sunshine State Conference Baseball honors, it was announced Tuesday. The University of Tampa had eight student-athletes honored, including three on the first team.
Nova Southeastern's Justin Garcia was named Player of the Year and Florida Tech's Scott Ward was named Pitcher of the Year. Ryan Baldwin of Barry was named Freshman of the Year. Greg Brown of Nova Southeastern was named Coach of the Year.
For UT, Cody deNoyelles, Stephen Dezzi and Brett Jones led the Spartans as first-team performers. Earning a spot on the second team was Giovanny Alfonzo, Andrew Amaro, Casey Scoggins, Chase Sparkman and Nick Tindall.
Voting for the All-SSC Baseball awards was conducted among the league's baseball coaches.
Garcia, a junior from Hialeah, Florida, led the SSC in Slugging Percentage (.901), On-base Percentage (.484), Home Runs (24), and Total Bases (164). He hit .390 and drove in 67 runs during the regular season to lead the Nova Southeastern Sharks to their first SSC title and a No. 2 seed in the NCAA South Regional.
Ward went 9-2 during the regular season with a 2.04 ERA and 53 strikeouts. With the help of his work on the mound, the Florida Tech Panthers were able to return to the postseason as the No. 4 seed in the south region. The senior from Port Orange threw 83.2 innings during the regular season, holding his opponents to a .238 batting average while recording a 0.9920 WHIP.
Baldwin led the Barry Buccaneers with a .362 batting average in 36 games played during the regular season. The Fairhaven, Massachusetts native also totaled 29 Runs Batted In and 20 Runs off 42 hits during his freshman campaign.
Brown wins Nova Southeastern's first SSC Coach of the Year honor after leading Sharks to a 38-11 regular season record and the 2015 conference title. This is the third time Coach Brown has led the Sharks into the postseason in his five seasons at NSU.
Stephen Dezzi (Tampa) returns to first team for the second straight year, and Ward makes an appearance on this year's first team after being named second team in 2014. Tampa's Giovanny Alfonzo (2014 first team) and Nick Tindall (2014 second team), and Saint Leo's Dylan Harris (2014 first team) have also earned All-SSC honors for a second consecutive year. Twenty-seven student athletes named to the 2015 All-SSC teams hail from the state of Florida.
Nova Southeastern, Tampa, Florida Tech, and Lynn have each been selected to the NCAA postseason and will open up player at the NCAA South Regional Tournament on Thursday, May 14th in Livingston, Alabama. No. 2 Nova Southeastern and No. 5 Lynn will face off against each other while No. 3 Tampa goes up against No. 4 Florida Tech.