After an action-packed college baseball regular season, Michella Chester has sent in her top honors for teams and players from this year.
- Top Pitcher: Hagen Smith — Arkansas
- Named SEC Pitcher of the Year and is a consensus top-10 MLB draft pick for 2024
- Semifinalist for the Dick Howser and Golden Spikes awards
- Two strikeouts away from breaking David Walling's single-season program record (155 strikeouts)
- Top Freshmen: Drew Burress — Georgia Tech
- Led Georgia Tech in batting average, home runs and RBI
- Has a chance at becoming the 12th Yellow Jacket to win the team triple-crown. Burress would be the first to accomplish the feat since Matt Gonzalez in 2016
- Eight RBI away from breaking Matt Wieters’ freshman RBI record, 69, set in 2005.
- Semifinalist for the Dick Howser Trophy and the ACC Freshman of the Year
- One of the top freshmen nationally, hitting a team-best .379 with 14 doubles, two triples, 22 home runs and 62 RBI. Burress' OPS is 1.311, slugging .803 with an on-base percentage of .508,
- Leads all DI freshmen in six statistical categories (home runs, home runs per game, slugging, total bases, walks, and walks per game), ranks top-3 nationally in 11 categories and leads ACC freshmen in eight categories
- Top Catcher: Cole Messina — South Carolina
- Named to all-SEC tournament team
- Broke SEC Tournament record for RBI with 16 in the five games played by the Gamecocks
- Went 9 for 16 with nine runs scored, a double, four home runs and eight walks, good for a .680 on-base percentage
- Most Feared Hitter: Charlie Condon — Georgia
- Led the nation in batting average (.451) and home runs (35)
- 2024 SEC Player of the Year and Golden Spikes semifinalist
- Set the NCAA single-season home run record (BBCOR era) while notching an 8-game homer streak in the process
Charlie Condon has homered in 7 straight games 😤🔥 @BaseballUGA pic.twitter.com/lG6ko2lXPk
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) May 7, 2024
- MOP: Charlie Condon — Georgia
- Top Infielder: Travis Bazzana — Oregon State
- Hit .423 with 82 hits, 16 doubles and 26 home runs this season, has stolen 15 bases (36 steals in 2023)
- Semifinalist for Golden Spikes Award, lone representative from the Pac-12 Conference.
- First nationally in on-base percentage (.587), second in slugging percentage (.963) and walks (68), and fourth in runs scored (80)
- Broke Oregon State single-season records for home runs and total bases (183)
- Top Outfielder: Braeden Montgomery — Texas A&M
- Golden Spikes semifinalist
- Started all 55 games, batting .325 with 26 homers, SEC-best 80 RBI
- Nationally, ranks fourth in RBI, seventh in homers, ninth in RBI per game (1.45), 15th in total bases (163) and 16th in walks (51)
- No. 5 MLB Draft prospect.
Click or tap here for the full regional breakdown
- Most Fun Team/Drip: Wake Forest
- 105 Demon Deacon home runs mark the third consecutive season Deacs have hit 100-plus (fourth-highest home run total in program history)
- Reached the 30-win mark for the third straight season
- David F. Couch Ballpark in 2024: season attendance of 76,888 fans set a new program record
- Set a weekend attendance record of 10,542 with sellouts in all three games against North Carolina
- Finished the 2024 regular season home slate with a program-record eight sellouts
- Best two-way player: Jac Caglianone — Florida
- Top candidate for the Golden Spikes Award
- Homered in an NCAA-record nine-straight games from April 6-19
- 66-consecutive plate appearances without a strikeout from April 7-27
- Posted a 30-game hitting streak from March 23 through May 12 to tie the all-time program mark set by Jacob Young in 2021
- Two most-prolific home run seasons in Gators history, setting the team record with 33 last season. His 29 bombs this year rank second
- Top reliever: Charlie Beilenson — Duke
- Made ACC all-tournament team
- Perfect Game Third Team Midseason All-American honors and a spot on the Midseason Stopper of the Year Watch List
- 11 saves this season, tying him for fourth nationally (one shy of Duke’s single-season record)
- Season-high of four innings on April 14 in a win against Virginia Tech
- Regular-season numbers: 1.89 ERA, 0.92 WHIP over 52.1 innings
- Picked up a save in his first eight appearances while allowing zero runs
- Best Mustache: Nick Lopez — Kentucky
- Named first team all-Southeastern Conference
- Regular season. stats: .380 batting average, 52 runs, 70 hits, two triples, six home runs, 22 walks and 47 RBI
- Dug Out Celly: Coastal Carolina
- The Chanticleers win this competitive category with an astronaut helmet
- The helmet gets placed on anyone who hits a homerun as they enter the dugout
- Most hype/Electric player: Chase Burns — Wake Forest
- Career-high 16-strikeout performance against Clemson on May 10 to set the Wake Forest record for most strikeouts in a season
- High-90s fastball, putaway slider, big curve and solid changeup
- 10 double-digit strikeout games in his first 13 starts with five games of 14 or more strikeouts
- Been at or near the top of the Division 1 strikeout rankings all year, ranks among the leaders in batting average against and WHIP