Big South Announces Baseball Players of the Week - May 13
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – Gardner-Webb infielder Alec Burns (Amherst, N.H.) has been named the Big South Baseball Player of the Week while USC Upstate’s Jagger Jefferis (Barnesville, Ohio) is the Starting Pitcher of the Week for games played May 6-12, it was announced today. In addition, Charleston Southern’s Evan Truitt (Berlin, Md.) and High Point’s Cael Chatham (Woodstock, Ga.) were selected as the Co-Relief Pitchers of the Week while Charleston Southern starting pitcher Matt Gallant (Folsom, Calif.) is the Freshman of the Week honoree.
Burns slashed .667/.789/1.417 with three home runs, seven RBI and six runs scored in four games for Gardner-Webb. He went 8-12 at the plate overall, walked seven times and registered a pair of three-hit performances, including at least one hit in all four games on the week. The graduate went 3-3 with a home run, two RBI, three runs scored and two walks to open the week at Western Carolina on Tuesday. He then combined for another two hits, two RBI, one run and three walks in the first two games of the weekend at UNC Asheville before capping off the series with his first-career multi-homer performance to go along with three RBI, two runs and two walks in a win on Sunday.
Making his first start of the season, Jefferis struck out a career-high 11 batters while allowing one run on four hits and two walks in 6.0 innings, a career-long. He recorded his first six outs of the game via strikeout and registered multiple punchouts in three different innings, including a strikeout in each inning. Overall, he held opponents to a .182 batting average, while his 11 strikeouts are the most by a Spartan in his first career Upstate start in the program’s D1 era.
In two relief appearances, Truitt allowed no runs on two hits en route to picking up two saves for Charleston Southern against Radford. He struck out a total of four batters in 7.0 innings, walked just two and allowed only five baserunners overall. In the conference series opener on Friday, he entered in the sixth inning and threw 4.0 scoreless frames while allowing two hits and striking out three. On Sunday, he helped the Buccaneers clinch the series after giving up no runs and no hits in another 3.0 unblemished innings.
Chatham registered three saves in three appearances last week for High Point. Overall, he allowed just one hit and one run over 2.1 innings as he closed out all three Panther wins on the mound. The right-hander earned his first save in an inning of work on Tuesday at Elon. Over the weekend, he followed up by allowing no hits and no runs in two save opportunities to help clinch the conference series against Winthrop to help HPU remain in the driver’s seat of the Big South standings.
Gallant served as the Sunday starter for the Bucs and had his best outing of his debut year at Charleston Southern. He went a career-long 6.0 innings and tied his career-high in strikeouts with nine as he picked up his first-career victory with a shutout of the Highlanders to notch a series win. Gallant yielded just four hits while positioning CSU to control its destiny to make the Big South Tournament with three games remaining.
Also nominated for Player of the Week: Peyton Carr (High Point), Keondre Shelton (Longwood), Joel Dragoo (Presbyterian), Zack Whitacre (Radford) and Jace Rinehart (USC Upstate).
Also nominated for Starting Pitcher of the Week: Matt Gallant (Charleston Southern), Reid Bertram (Gardner-Webb) Dylan Howard (Radford) and Colby Guy (UNC Asheville).
Also nominated for Relief Pitcher of the Week: Connor Maggi (Gardner-Webb), Drew Stanley (Radford), Justin Honeycutt (UNC Asheville) and Braden Consaul (USC Upstate).
Also nominated for Freshman of the Week: Dalton Olsovsky (High Point), Blagen Pado (Longwood), Breckin Nace (Radford) and Vance Sheahan (USC Upstate).