C-USA Announces 2006 Postseason Baseball Awards
May 23, 2006 Tulane junior first baseman Mark Hamilton and Houston junior righthander Brad Lincoln headline the list of league award winners as announced on Tuesday in Houston, the site of the 2006 Conference USA Baseball Championship. Hamilton became the seventh Green Wave player in the last eight years to be named Player of the Year, while Lincoln became the third Cougar to earn Pitcher of the Year honors. Redshirt freshman OF Warren McFadden gave Tulane its second straight Freshman of the Year honoree and its fourth since 2001. Graham took home the Keith LeClair Conference USA Coach of the Year award after leading the Owls to the best conference winning percentage (.917) in league history. Voting was done by a panel consisting of each head coach, each team's sports information director and a media representative from each city. Hamilton started all 56 games for the Green Wave, leading the team in home runs (17) and RBI (61). He is batting .332 with a team-best .644 slugging percentage and a .461 on-base percentage. Hamilton has hit 12 doubles, leads the team in multiple-RBI games with 16 and has recorded two or more hits on 21 occasions. Lincoln has won 10 consecutive starts and is 11-1 with a 1.57 ERA and 141 strikeouts, a figure that ranks second in the nation. He has a 7-0 record with a 1.28 ERA in C-USA games. A four-time Conference USA Pitcher of the Week honoree, Lincoln has recorded at least seven strikeouts in all but one of his 15 starts and has five double-digit strikeout performances. He is just the third player in school history to throw at least 100 strikeouts in one season. McFadden ranked second in Conference USA in batting (.390) and doubles (21), while posting a team-high .463 on-base percentage. He recorded 80 hits (fourth in the league), scored 47 runs and drove in 43. McFadden led all C-USA freshmen in on-base percentage, RBI, runs scored and total bases (107), finishing the regular season with 28 multiple hit games. In his 15th season at the helm of the Rice program, Graham was named Keith LeClair Coach of the Year in the Owls first season as a member of Conference USA. At 46-10, Rice owns the best record in Division I as the Owls have posted their 11th consecutive conference championship (regular season and/or tournament) and will make their 11th straight NCAA appearance under his tutelage. Rice has spent seven weeks ranked No. 1 in at least one national poll and currently occupy the top spot in all four. The Keith LeClair Coach of the Year award is named after the former East Carolina head coach, who courageously continues to battle ALS, or as it is more commonly known as, Lou Gehrig's Disease. Diagnosed with the disease in 2001, LeClair continues to attend Pirate home games, watching from a specially designed suite in ECU's new home field that bears his name, Clark-LeClair Stadium. Regular season runner-up Houston had the most first team selections with four, while Rice and Tulane each had three. The Owls placed a league-best eight representatives on the two All-Conference teams. Southern Miss had five total selections, while Houston and Tulane both earned four. Southern Miss was the only team to produce three All-Freshman team selections, while Houston and UCF each had two.
2006 CONFERENCE USA BASEBALL AWARDS
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
PITCHER OF THE YEAR
FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR
KEITH LeCLAIR COACH OF THE YEAR
FIRST TEAM ALL-CONFERENCE IF Adam Amar, Memphis IF Brian Friday, Rice IF Isa Garcia, Houston IF Mark Hamilton, Tulane IF Marc Maddox, Southern Miss OF Toddric Johnson, Southern Miss OF Warren McFadden, Tulane OF Matt Weston, Houston C Jake Smith, East Carolina DH/UT Brad Lincoln, Houston P Tim Bascom, UCF P Eddie Degerman, Rice P Brad Lincoln, Houston P Sean Morgan, Tulane RP Cole St.Clair, Rice
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
