May 25, 2016

Waugaman, Fritz earn ABCA/Rawlings All-Region

GROVE CITY, Pa. -- Grove City College baseball junior first baseman Matt Waugaman (Pittsburgh, Pa./North Allegheny) and junior catcher Andy Fritz (Saxonburg, Pa./Knoch) have been selected to the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA)/Rawlings Division III Mideast Region Teams, as announced by the ABCA on Tuesday afternoon.

Waugaman, a Third Team All-Mideast Region selection from D3Baseball.com on Monday, earned Second Team All-Mideast Region laurels from the ABCA while Fritz was named to the Third Team. The junior standouts were two of 11 Presidents' Athletic Conference players named to the three all-region teams.

A 2016 First Team All-PAC selection, Waugaman had a brilliant junior season that saw him break eight program single-season records, establishing new marks for games played (44), games started (44), at-bats (160), hits (65), runs batted in (54), total bases (121) and putouts (373) while tying catcher Marcus Magister's 2009 record of 13 home runs.

In addition to the aforementioned categories, Waugaman also led the Wolverines in batting average (.406), slugging percentage (.756), on-base percentage (.490), runs (44), triples (2) and fielding percentage (.990) while ranking second on the team in doubles (13) and walks (24). He led the conference in hits, home runs, RBIs, slugging and total bases while ranking among the top four in five additional offensive categories.

Waugaman's 13 home runs are tied for seventh-most among all NCAA Division III players this year at time of press while he also ranks 15th nationally in slugging and tied for 20th in RBIs.

Fritz, an All-PAC Second Team honoree, set a new program single-season record with 16 doubles while ranking second on the team in batting average (.405), hits (60), RBIs (41), total bases (82), slugging percentage (.554), on-base percentage (.474) and fielding percentage (.976). His 16 doubles ranked second among league counterparts while he also ranked fourth in the conference in batting average, fifth in on-base percentage and sixth in both hits and RBIs.

This marks the first time that Grove City has ever had two players earn all-region honors in the same season. Waugaman and Fritz are the first Grove City players to earn all-region accolades since pitcher Cory Metcalf earned ABCA Third Team laurels following the 2011 season. Magister was the most recent Wolverine position player to earn all-region honors, doing so in both 2009 and 2010.

Grove City finished the 2016 season 27-17 overall and 15-9 in conference play, concluding their year with their program-record 27th victory by defeating Penn State Behrend in a best-of-three series for the 2016 ECAC DIII Southwest Championship.

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