SPOKANE, Wash.- Gonzaga Baseball capped off a regular season title with a sweep of the major WCC year end honors, winning the Coach of the Year, Player of the Year, Pitcher of the Year and Freshman of the Year awards.
Mark Machtolf is the WCC Coach of the Year award, his sixth time winning the award. Mikey Bell was named the WCC Player of the Year, winning the award for the second year in a row. Bell is just the second player ever to repeat as the back to back WCC Player of the Year. Karsten Sweum won the WCC Pitcher of the Year, while Landon Hood is the WCC Freshman of the Year.
Machtolf, who holds the career head coach wins record for Gonzaga Baseball with 658, led the Zags to a 22-5 conference record while securing Gonzaga's seventh regular season WCC title. The Zags had 7 more wins than every other WCC team, the largest winning margin in the conference since 1992. Machtolf holds a career 342-206 record in WCC play.
Mikey Bell repeated as the WCC Player of the Year after putting up a .430 batting average in conference games. Bell had a 1.197 OPS in WCC games, putting up 23 extra base hits and 87 total bases in just 27 games in conference play. He finished the year with a .396 batting average while starting all 53 games this season. Bell is tied for the fourth most doubles of any Division 1 Baseball player this year with 24. He holds a career batting average of .379 across both years at Gonzaga, the highest career batting average for a Gonzaga player since 1981 and the fourth highest ever recorded in program history.
Karsten Sweum wins the WCC Pitcher of the Year after an exceptional year in his sophomore season. Sweum has thrown 108 strikeouts, tied for the 13th most by any pitcher in Division 1 baseball. He threw the sixth no-hitter in program history on May 9th against San Francisco, striking out 15 batters on just 93 pitches. Sweum had the best ERA of any pitcher in conference play, posting a 2.62 ERA in WCC action, where he was the only pitcher with a batting average against below .200, with opposing batters hitting just .198 against the left hander.
Landon Hood was named the WCC Freshman of the Year after winning the weekly freshman honors six times during the season. Hood had four saves in conference play, striking out 35 batters over 24.2 innings. Hood was named to the Midseason Freshman All-American Second Team by Perfect Game, as well as being named to the College Baseball Foundation's midseason shortlist for National Pitcher of the Year.
Gonzaga had seven players named to the All-Conference Teams. Bell and Sweum were named to the All-WCC First Team alongside Maddox Haley, Ryder Young and Justin Feld. Hood was joined by Ricky Sanchez on the All-WCC Second Team, while Noah Meffert and Jacob Wrubleski were named as All-WCC Honorable Mentions.
Yearly WCC Awards for Gonzaga:
Coach of the Year: Mark Machtolf
Player of the Year: Mikey Bell, Junior
Pitcher of the Year: Karsten Sweum, Sophomore
Freshman of the Year: Landon Hood, Freshman
First Team All-WCC: Mikey Bell, Junior
                                    Maddox Haley, Junior
                                Ryder Young, Junior
                            Justin Feld, Senior
                            Karsten Sweum, Sophomore
Second Team All-WCC: Landon Hood, Freshman
                               Ricky Sanchez, Graduate Student
Honorable Mention: Noah Meffert, Senior
                          Jacob Wrubleski, Junior
