Nine Waves Honored By WCC Thursday
6/11/2010 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
June 3, 2010
MALIBU, Calif. - Nine members of the 2010 Pepperdine baseball team were listed among the West Coast Conference's top players when it announced its All-WCC teams Thursday morning.
Junior Matt Bywater (Thousand Oaks, Calif./Thousand Oaks HS), redshirt sophomore Cole Cook (Los Angeles, Calif./Palisades Charter HS), sophomore Brian Humphries (El Cajon, Calif./Granite Hills HS) and senior Colin Rooney (Yorba Linda, Calif./Esperanza HS) were tabbed to the 2010 All-WCC team, while honorable mention citations were bestowed upon junior senior Robert Dickmann (Woodland Hills, Calif./Notre Dame HS), Floyd Given (Rohnert Park, Calif./Rancho Cotate HS), sophomore Nate Johnson (Camarillo, Calif./Camarillo HS) and freshmen Joe Sever (San Jose, Calif./Bellarmine College Preparatory) and Zachary Vincej (Saugus, Calif./Saugus HS).
Sever and Vincej, the Waves' middle infielders through all 21 conference games, also were unanimous selections to the 2010 WCC All-Freshman Team.
Sever led Pepperdine with a .310 batting average, nine stolen bases and 37 runs in addition to driving in 19 RBI. In an early-season game vs. Oregon, Sever tied two game records with five hits and four runs, and late in the year at Cal Poly combined with Vincej to complete the Waves' first triple play in over 15 years.
Vincej missed the season's first 12 games with an injury before taking over full time at shortstop, a position from where he helped spin 22 twin killings. At the plate, Vincej batted .320 vs. the league while clubbing four extra-base hits and dropping down five sacrifice hits.
A four-time WCC Pitcher of the Week, Bywater joined Cook and Humphries as the lone Waves recognized by the conference in consecutive years. Bywater has been an All-WCC first team selection the last two seasons, and prior to that was a 2008 honorable mention and all-freshman team honoree.
Bywater this year, however, outshined his previous two campaigns combined by leading the conference with a 2.40 ERA and four shutouts, and tied Cook for the league lead with five complete games. He also struck out 83 batters and limited opposing hitters to a .248 batting average.
Additionally, Bywater won four of his conference starts and went the distance on three occasions while shutting out both Santa Clara and WCC champion San Diego. Bywater's victory over the Toreros snapped their season opening conference winning streak at 15-games.
Like Bywater, Cook also was a unanimous selection to the All-WCC team, and led the Waves during the conference portion of their season with a 2.50 ERA, four complete games and 45 strikeouts. Cook's lone shutout came against Saint Mary's, which earned him WCC Pitcher of the Week honors.
A 2009 member of the WCC All-Freshman Team with Humphries, Cook has won a total of two WCC Pitcher of the Week awards and received conference pitcher of the month honors last March after compiling a 4-1 record with 30 strikeouts.
Humphries came on strong against conference opponents, batting .375 through 19 starts in the outfield with 13 extra-base hits and 14 RBI. Overall, he led the Waves with 67 base hits and was one of their top defensive players in the outfield, twice reaching over the wall in Eddy D. Field Stadium to rob opposing batters of home runs.
In May, following back-to-back series wins over Saint Mary's and Loyola Marymount, Humphries became the Waves' first consecutive recipient of the WCC's Player of the Week since G.J. Raymundo earned this distinction on Feb. 23 and March 3 of 1999.
Rooney possessed his own gold glove at third base and made just one error at the hot corner through 51 chances vs. WCC opposition. He consistently robbed players of hits through the left side and rarely, if ever, failed to get the ball across the diamond in time.
At the plate, Rooney finished his final year with a career-best 13-game hitting streak that raised his conference batting average to .333. He led his club with 19 RBI vs. the WCC in addition to scoring 15 runs on top of four doubles, a triple and three home runs.
Given, a transfer from Sacramento City College, led Pepperdine with a .389 batting average against the WCC but his season was cut short after suffering an injury prior to a midweek game. But through his 13 conference starts, he provided a solid bat in the Waves' lineup to produce 21 runs on as many hits, including home runs at Saint Mary's and Santa Clara.
Johnson caught all but one of the 473.1 innings pitched by the Waves' this season but held up well through the grueling conference season, hitting .298 with a team-best four home runs. Two of those home runs were blasted during consecutive games at Loyola Marymount as he became the first Wave since 2008 to homer in three straight games.
Johnson finished the year with a career-best nine round-trippers and was the lone Wave to hit a grand slam (3/26 vs. Stony Brook) and smack two home runs in one game (3/12 vs. East Carolina).
Dickmann, winner of Monday's WCC Player of the Week Award following a 1-0 win over San Francisco, established a number of season bests in 2010, including eight wins, 99.1 innings pitched and 75 strikeouts.
