Courtesy: Jeff Golden Denny Duron was voted as the WCC's Defensive Player of the Year by the conference's coaches.
MALIBU, Calif. – Eight members of the 2009 Pepperdine Baseball team including West Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year Denny Duron (Shreveport, La./Evangel Christian Academy) were officially recognized by the WCC Wednesday in a release announcing the conference’s postseason honorees.
All five of the WCC’s individual awards in addition to its First, Honorable Mention and Freshman Teams were voted on by the conference’s eight head coaches.
Joining Duron on the postseason awards’ list are first teamers Nate Simon (Duvall, Wash./Redmond HS), Matt Bywater (Thousand Oaks, Calif./Thousand Oaks HS) and Nick Gaudi (Lancaster, Calif./Paraclete HS), honorable mentions Scott Alexander (Windsor, Calif./Cardinal Newman HS) and Bryce Uhrig (Santa Barbara, Calif./Santa Barbara HS), and all-freshmen Cole Cook (Los Angeles, Calif./Palisades Charter HS) and Brian Humphries (El Cajon, Calif./Granite Hills).
Pepperdine’s eight WCC award winners tie a program record originally set in 1987 and duplicated again in 1992 and 2008. Waves’ assistant coachRick Hirtensteiner was one of the 1987 team’s honorees, and head coach Steve Rodriguez was an All-WCC First Team selection in 1992.
Duron, a senior, posted a .982 fielding percentage at shortstop as he committed three errors on 165 chances. He also helped convert 18 double plays in keeping Pepperdine ranked among the top fielding teams in the nation.
Following this weekend’s series vs. Santa Clara, Pepperdine and Creighton were tied for the NCAA lead in fielding percentage at .983.
Duron’s strength as a defender was taking away hits up the middle and through the hole on the left side as he routinely displayed great range and cannon for an arm. There’s no judging how many hits he converted into outs, but he did lead the Waves with 115 assists.
While Duron was keeping opposing offenses off the scoreboard, Simon kept lighting it up during his senior campaign for the Waves.
Simon batted .357 against the WCC to go along with five round-trippers and 27 RBI. The Tulane transfer’s biggest hits of the year included a grand slam vs. Loyola Marymount that traveled in excess of 400 feet, as well as a game-winning blast in a 3-2 extra-inning victory vs. Cal State Northridge.
Gaudi, Alexander and Bywater are all two-time conference selections. A senior, Gaudi kept his place on the All-WCC First Team by tying for the conference lead with nine saves and posting a 5-3 win-loss record.
Earlier this season, Gaudi received consideration for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award and just recently was tabbed to the NCBWA’s Stopper of the Year Midseason Watch List.
Bywater, a member of the All-WCC Freshman Team a year ago with Alexander, registered a perfect 4-0 record against conference opponents this season through five starts. The sophomore also struck out 33 and limited opposing hitters to a .205 batting average.
Alexander stymied the opposition as both a starter and closer. The second-year southpaw appeared in six conference games, including two starts, and posted a 2.31 earned run average with 23 punch outs. In last Saturday’s game vs. Santa Clara, Alexander pitched four scoreless innings of relief while striking out five as Pepperdine rallied for an 8-4 win.
Uhrig appeared in five of seven WCC series in his first year as a Wave and went 1-0 with a 0.84 ERA and one save. The Santa Barbara City College transfer was the winning pitcher in a 7-6 game at San Francisco, holding the Diamond Dons to one hit in 2.1 innings pitched, and earned his first and only save by pitching the final four innings in a 14-9 triumph at Portland.
Cook led all Pepperdine pitchers with 42 Ks through seven conference starts and walked just 14 batters in 49.2 innings of work. The redshirt freshman’s most impressive performance was a combined three-hit shutout of LMU with Gaudi, in which he whiffed seven batters through eight frames.
In his WCC debut at San Diego, Cook limited the Toreros to two hits over eight innings and struck out five despite being on the losing end of a 4-2 defeat.
Cook has been recognized three times by the WCC this season. He received Pitcher of the Month honors following a 4-1 March and was voted Player of the Week in recognition of his effort against Loyola Marymount.
If Humphries had been hitting all season like he has over the past half month, he’d be a unanimous choice for Player of the Year. The rookie has raised his batting average .040 points since the start of May thanks to an incredible eight-game hitting streak, in which he has posted six multi-hit games and four straight three-hit contests.
Humphries came into the season’s final week with a .306 batting average, two home runs, 38 RBI and eight stolen bases in nine attempts. He’s also the only Wave this year to start and play all 54 games.
Player of the Year: James Meador, USD Pitcher of the Year: Matt Fields, GON Freshman of the Year: Troy Channing, SMC Defensive Player of the Year: Denny Duron, PEP Coach of the Year: Mark Machtolf, GON
All-WCC First Team Dane Braunecker, USF Matt Bywater, PEP Troy Channing, SMC Matt Fields, GON Nate Garcia, SCU Nick Gaudi, PEP AJ Griffin, USD Kyle Jensen, SMC Drew Johnson, USF Jonathan Johnson, LMU Brian Justice, SMC Jon Karcich, SCU Zach Kim, USF Geoff Klein, SCU James Meador, USD Doug Murray, USF Sean Nicol, USD Derek Poppert, USF Lee Roberts, LMU Nate Simon, PEP Anthony Synegal, GON Tyson Van Winkle, GON Zach Walters, USD Ryan Wheeler, LMU Ryan Wiegand, GON
Honorable Mention Scott Alexander, PEP Anthony Aliotti, SMC Steven Ames, GON Brandon Berl, SMC TJ Bernardy, LMU Cort Carpenter, POR Bobby Ethel, USF Ryan Hawthorne, LMU Riley Henricks, POR Matt Hiserman, USF Kris Kauppila, POR Matt Long, SCU Nick McCoy, USD Cory Miller, SMC Shon Roe, LMU Kyle Spraker, LMU Bryce Uhrig, PEP Zach Varce, POR
All-Freshman Team Kyle Barraclough, SMC Andrew Biancardi, SCU Troy Channing, SMC Cole Cook, PEP Bryan Haar, USD Ryan Hawthorne, LMU Brian Humphries, PEP Kris Kauppila, POR Kyle Kraus, POR Shon Roe, LMU
Courtesy: Jeff Golden
