MAAC Baseball Teams Earn Numerous Postseason Awards
MAAC Sports
Edison, N.J. ? Members of four Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference baseball teams earned regional and national postseason awards.
Canisius College had two different players earn All-America honors ? freshman pitcher Shane Davis and junior second baseman Kevin Mailloux. Davis and Mailloux were each named NCAA Division I Third Team All-Americans by the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA). Davis also earned NCAA Division I Third Team All-America honors from Louisville Slugger, the National Collegiate Baseball Writers’ Association (NCBWA) and Ping! Baseball.
Davis, the first player in MAAC history to earn Pitcher of the Year and Rookie of the Year honors in the same season, received Freshman All-America First-Team honors from the NCBWA, Louisville Slugger and Ping! Baseball. Manhattan College pitcher Dan Forman and Rider University infielder Mason Heyne were also named to the Louisville Slugger Freshman All-America First Team.
The ABCA named Canisius’ Davis, Mailloux and Kevin Mahoney to the Rawlings NCAA Northeast Region First Team, making the Golden Griffins the only team in the Northeast to have three players on the First Team. Also named to the First Team was Manhattan sophomore outfielder Kevin Nieto. Siena third baseman Jacob Willis, the MAAC Player of the Year, was named to the Second Team. Rider reliever James Hayes, the 2008 MAAC Relief Pitcher of the Year, earned All-East Region Second Team honors. He was also named the New Jersey College Baseball Association Player of the Year.
Canisius’ Mailloux and Mahoney and Manhattan’s Nieto were also named ECAC Division I All-Stars.
Canisius head coach Mike McRae, the 2008 MAAC Coach of the Year, earned honorable mention national Coach of the Year recognition from CollegeBaseballInsider.com, which named co-National Coaches of the Year and recognized five coaches from the 296 NCAA Division I baseball teams as honorable mention.