Six PBC Baseball Players Named All-American
CARY, N.C. – Six Peach Belt Conference baseball players were named All-Americans as both the Rawlings/ABCA team and the Daktronics teams were released in conjunction with the Division II World Series. Columbus State’s Jason Rogers and GCSU’s Martin Dewald were named to both teams. FMU’s Barrett Kleinknecht and North Georgia’s Chris Rearick were named to the Rawlings/ABCA team while USCA’s Nick Aranas and GCSU’s Sean Harrell made the Daktrnoics team.
Rogers was named first team All-America by the ABCA and third team by Daktrnoics. He tied the Columbus State and Peach Belt Conference marks for homeruns in a single season with 26 in 2010. He set a new CSU mark with 46 extra-base hits in a season (26 HR, 18 2b, 2 3b), and narrowly missed the CSU record for RBI in a season with 86 (the record is 89 by Rodney Rutherford in 2007). He also set a new mark for slugging percentage in a season with a phenomenal mark of .869, breaking a 23-year-old record set by CSU Hall of Fame member Chip Duncan in 1987, and also for total bases in a season with 193.
Dewald, a National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Honorable Mention All-American closer in 2009, made the move to a starting role this season for GCSU, and pulled it off to the tune of 2010 Daktronics Southeast Region Pitcher of the Year accolades. Dewald is 11-3 after opening the College World Series Saturday night with a complete-game heartbreaker loss. He owns a 3.53 ERA and 117 strikeouts over 112 1/3 innings. Dewald has eight complete games on the year now, including three shutouts.
Kleinknecht, a native of Florence, led FMU with a .371 average and was the team leader in runs scored (55), hits (79), doubles (19), homers (13), runs batted in (46), and slugging percentage (.662). He also shared team lead in stolen bases (10-of-12). He compiled 24 multi-hit games and 12 multi-RBIs games, while reaching base safely in 48 of 53 games. Nationally, he is ranked as the 56th toughest player to strike out with only 14 punchouts in 248 plate appearances and is 11th in Division II with eight sacrifice flies. He owns a .959 fielding percentage, is fourth in the Peach Belt Conference in fielding assists, and had a hand in 24 double plays this season.
The awards keep coming in for North Georgia’s Chris Rearick, who after earning PBC Pitcher of the Year honors, was named the ABCA Southeast Region Pitcher of the year. He also named Daktronics Second-Team All-Region after finishing 9-2 on the year with 99 strikeouts and a 3.20 earned run average. He tossed 98.1 innings, while opponents hit .237 against the left-hander.
Aranas finished the regular season leading the Pacers with a .415 (83-for-200) batting average. The batting average is the third-best in the Peach Belt Conference. In total, the Lexington, S.C. native finished the 2010 season in the top 15 in the PBC in six different categories. He was second-best among all Pacers in 2010 with 53 RBIs and 46 runs scored. He was second on the squad in total bases over the course of the year as well with 129. Aranas slugged a team second-best .645 and had a team-high on-base percentage of .481.
Sean Harrell was named first-team PBC All-Conference and first-team All-Region by Daktronics and Rawlings. The senior from Martinez, Ga., is hitting .444 with 11 home runs and 54 RBI, adding a team-high 77 runs scored. He is slugging second on the team at .708 and adds a .522 on-base percentage to go with 20 stolen bases. A two-time PBC player of the week, Harrell is currently playing in the Division II World Series.
The Rawlings/ABCA All-America team is voted on and administered by the American Baseball Coaches Association of America. The Daktronics team is administered and voted on by collegiate Sports Information Directors.
Rawlings/American Baseball Coaches Association
All-America Team
First Team
1b – Jason Rogers, Columbus State
Second Team
SP – Martin Dewald, GCSU
Third Team
SS – Barrett Kleinknecht, Francis Marion
SP – Chris Rearick, North Georgia
Daktronics Division II All-America Team
First Team
DH – Nick Aranas, USC Aiken
Third Team
1b – Jason Rogers, Columbus State
OF – Sean Harrell, GCSU
SP – Martin Dewald, GCSU