Four Wolverines Selected for All-Big Ten Recognition
5/21/2002 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Hill and Korecky anchored the Michigan pitching staff that led the Big Ten in earned run average. The Wolverines (21-32, 14-17 Big Ten) finished eighth in the conference.
Koman, who was named winner of the Ray L. Fisher Award as Michigan's Most Valuable Player for the second straight year on Monday (May 20), was a second team selection a year ago at third base. He led the Wolverines in hitting with a .361 batting average in overall play and in Big Ten play with a .365 average and he was the only Wolverine to start and play in all 53 games. Koman led the Wolverines in hits (69), runs (46), doubles (17), RBI (41), total bases (107), walks (23), times hit by pitch (12) and on-base percentage (.460). He was second in homers (7) and slugging percentage (.560).
Hill, who was named winner of the Geoff Zahn Award as Michigan's Most Valuable Pitcher for 2002, garnered his first all-conference honor as a starting pitcher. He earned national Player of the Week honors from Collegiate Baseball and Baseball Weekly and was twice named Big Ten co-Pitcher of the Week during the season in which he became just the third Wolverine pitcher to strike out 100 batters in a season. Hill finished with 104 strikeouts in 76.1 innings.
Hill was 3-7 with a 3.54 ERA, lowest among the U-M starters, and he completed all eight of his Big Ten starts. In conference-only stats he led the Big Ten in strikeouts (65), called strikeouts (25) and runners picked off (7).
Co-captain Sokol, who blasted a long grand slam homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to beat Purdue 6-3 last Friday (May 17), had five three-hit games in 2002 while batting .325 in overall play and .360 in Big Ten games. Sokol earned Big Ten co-Player of the Week honors when he hit .857 vs. Iowa (March 30-31), going 6-for-7 with four walks (.909 on-base percentage).
Co-captain Korecky earned All-Big Ten honors for the third straight season as a starting pitcher. He was third team in 2000 and second team in 2001. Korecky (5-6, 4.34 ERA) closed out his career ranked second on Michigan's career innings pitched list at 295.1 and sixth on the career pitching appearance list with 64. He completed seven of his 11 starts as a senior and completed 20 of his 35 career pitching starts. He finished the season with 169 career strikeouts that was second on the active list behind Hill's total of 229.
Contact: Jim Schneider (734) 763-4423
