Graham & Rendon Garner C-USA Awards
5/25/2010 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 25, 2010
HOUSTON -- On the eve of the 2010 Conference USA Baseball Championship to be held across town at the University of Houston, Rice's Wayne Graham has been named the Keith LeClair Conference USA Coach of the Year and Owls' third baseman Anthony Rendon has been selected as the C-USA Player of the Year to headline a lengthy list of Rice baseball award winners announced by the league office on Tuesday (May 25).
Coach Graham and a total of seven Owl players were recognized for their success on the diamond the day before taking the field in C-USA's annual week-long championship tournament. All the award winners, including Graham and Rendon with two of the top honors the league can bestow, were selected on a vote of the league's head coaches, sports information directors and a media representative from each city. Rice's Jimmy Comerota (inf.), Mike Ojala (p), Diego Seastrunk (c), Rick Hague (inf), Jeremy Rathjen (dh/util.) and Taylor Wall (p) were named to the C-USA second team while Michael Ratterree was named to the league's all-freshman squad.
Graham has earned the LeClair Coach of the Year award in four of the five years (2006, 2007, 2008, 2010) Rice has been a C-USA member. Now in his 19th season at the helm of the Owls' program, Graham led Rice to a 35-20 record and its 15th-straight conference championship since 1996 (including regular season and conference tournament titles) while spanning three different leagues. He has been named a Division I conference coach of the year eight times and a national coach of the year four times in his 30-year collegiate career.
Rendon was named the C-USA Player of the Year as a freshman and his sophomore season in 2010 has been even better. The local standout from nearby Lamar High School leads the conference in home runs (22) and runs scored (71). He is also among the league's best in hitting (.378), RBI (72), slugging percentage (.786), walks (58) and on-base average (.519). Earlier in the season Rendon was invited to the try-out camp for the United State's National Team for a chance to represent his country later this summer in games against international competition all over the world. Last week he was named one 25 national semifinalists for the 2010 Dick Howser Award as the collegiate player of the year.
The 20th-ranked Rice baseball team is the No. 1 seed of the 2010 C-USA Championship which gets underway Wednesday, May 26, with three games at Cougar Field for three-consecutive days. Rice's first game in the tournament is at 3 pm Wednesday vs. East Carolina. The championship final will take place at 7 pm on Saturday, May 29, and will be televised live on CBS College Sports. All Rice games will be aired on the radio in the Houston area on KTRU (91.7 FM). Preliminary games will viewable on the web at RiceOwls.com.
2010 CONFERENCE USA BASEBALL AWARDS
PLAYER OF THE YEAR
Anthony Rendon, So., 3B, Rice
PITCHER OF THE YEAR
Seth Maness, Jr., RHP, East Carolina
FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR
Chris Taladay, Fr., IF, UCF
NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR
Zach Woods, Jr., RHP, East Carolina
KEITH LeCLAIR COACH OF THE YEAR
Wayne Graham, Rice
FIRST TEAM ALL-CONFERENCE
IF Anthony Rendon, So., Rice
IF Rob Segedin, So., Tulane
IF Luke Stewart, Sr., UAB
IF B.A. Vollmuth, So., Southern Miss
OF Shane Brown, Sr., UCF
OF Chris Duffy, Sr., UCF
OF Kurt Lipton, Sr., Marshall
C Victor Gomez, Jr., Marshall
DH/UT Kyle Roller, Sr., East Carolina
P Scott Copeland, Sr., Southern Miss
P Seth Maness, Jr., East Carolina
P Todd McInnis, Jr., Southern Miss
P Arik Sikula, Jr., Marshall
RP Collin Cargill, Jr., Southern Miss
SECOND TEAM ALL-CONFERENCE
IF Jimmy Comerota, Sr., Rice
IF Rick Hague, Jr., Rice
IF Jonathan Merritt, Sr., UAB
IF Corey Thompson, So., East Carolina
IF Chad Zurcher, So., Memphis
OF Jamal Austin, So., UAB
OF Tyler Huelsing, Sr., Memphis
OF Drew Martinez, So. Memphis
C Diego Seastrunk, Sr., Rice
DH/UT Jeremy Rathjen, So., Rice
P Ryan Fraser, Sr., Memphis
P Mike Ojala, Sr., Rice
P Taylor Wall, So., Rice
P Zach Woods, Jr., East Carolina
RP Nick Pepitone, Jr., Tulane
ALL-FRESHMAN TEAM
Brandon Boudreaux, OF, Tulane
Garrett Cannizaro, SS, Tulane
M.P. Cokinos, C/DH, Houston
Blake Crohan, UT, Tulane
Dillon Day, OF, Southern Miss
John Frost, UT, UAB
Kirby Pellant, 2B, Marshall
Michael Ratterree, 2B, Rice
Joe Rogers, LHP, UCF
Darnell Sweeney, SS, UCF
Chris Taladay, IF, UCF
John Wooten, SS, East Carolina
