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K.J. Randhawa Named To Ping!Baseball All-Freshmen Team Shortstop batted .405 in MWC play in 2007.
June 11, 2007 USAF ACADEMY, Colo. - Air Force shortstop K.J. Randhawa was named to the Ping!Baseball 2007 All-Freshmen Team, announced Monday. Randhawa (pronounced Ran-dah-wuh) had a standout freshman season for the Falcons in 2007, starting 45 games and finishing third on the team with a .280 batting average. Randhawa also led the team with 151 assists, ranking fifth in the Mountain West Conference. Randhawa, a Fairfield, Calif., native and a product of Vacaville Christian HS, made his mark in MWC play finishing fifth in the league with a .405 conference batting average. Randhawa was the first Falcon to bat over .400 in conference play since Mike Thiessen batted .435 in 1999. The rosters were selected by the Ping!Baseball staff after countless hours searching rosters for the premier freshmen players in the nation. Each year college baseball teams lose hundreds of quality players when the student-athletes graduate or advance their game to the professional level. However, every spring a new crop of future stars arises to replenish the lineups. This year's group is especially talented, with a number of competitors being good bets to spend their future summers swinging lumber instead of aluminum in the professional leagues. This year's offensive team includes the Freshman Player of the Year, North Carolina first baseman Dustin Ackley. Ackley, a Walnut Creek, NC, native, who models his game after another highly lauded first baseman, Pete Rose, has been hitting well over .400 for the entire season with astonishing plate discipline for any player, let alone a freshman. Opposing pitchers have only been able to put Ackley down on strikes sixteen times all season. His ability to put the ball into play has paid off brilliantly for the Heels as they made another run to Omaha. He leads Carolina nearly every major offensive category including stolen bases.
On the mound, Vanderbilt's Mike Minor was named the Ping! Freshman Pitcher of the Year by the slightest margin over Rice's Ryan Berry. Both hurlers were major reasons their teams were consistently at the top of the rankings since the first pitch of the season. The tandem combinded to go 20-3 with more strikeouts (207) and innings pitched (206.2). http://www.pingbaseball.com/allping_freshmanteam.php |
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