SCAC Announces 2022 All-Conference Baseball Team

CLEBURNE, Texas -- Joe Jimenez of Texas Lutheran University was voted the Offensive Player-of-the-Year and Tyler Herrera of Centenary College was selected the league's Pitcher-of-the-Year in exclusive 2022 all-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) voting by the conference's head coaches. Complete Release

In the same balloting, Herrera was also named the conference's Freshman-of-the-Year, while Trinity head coach Tim Scannell earned SCAC Coach-of-the-Year honors.

As for the All-SCAC team, the league's top three teams – Trinity, Texas Lutheran and Centenary – dominated the First Team selections with each garnering four honorees. Texas Lutheran had the most combined selections (First/Second Team) with eight, followed closely by Trinity with seven and Centenary with six.

Jimenez, a junior shortstop from San Antonio, Texas, leads the SCAC this season in home runs (15), runs batted in (67), total bases (114) and slugging percentage (.770), and is in the top five in hits (57), runs scored (48) and batting average (.385). His 15 home runs are tied for the fourth-most in a single season in league history and are currently fifth in NCAA Division III. His RBI total is tie for ninth in conference history and currently fourth in Division iII. Jimenez was a two-time SCAC Offensive Player-of-the-Week and a three-time selection to the D3baseball.com national Team of the Week during the 2002 season, including Week 5 when he was named the NCBWA National Hitter of the Week after posting six home runs and tallying 19 RBI on a blistering .647 average, going 11-for-17 at the plate as the Bulldogs posted a perfect 4-0 mark, including a three-game sweep of East Texas Baptist.

An ABCA Third Team All-Region selection a year ago when he helped lead the Bulldogs to the SCAC Tournament title and a deep NCAA Regional run, Jimenez is the second straight and third overall TLU player to earn Offensive Player-of-the-Year accolades. Riley Schaefer won the award in 2018 and Jimenez's former teammate, Tyler Cauley, won the award last season.

Jimenez received five first-place nods during the balloting process while senior first baseman Preston Ludwick of Centenary College picked up the three remaining votes.

Centenary's Herrera earned both Freshman- and Pitcher-of-the-Year honors, becoming just the second player in conference history to receive both accolades in the same season – joining Texas Lutheran's Nathan Malinovsky who earned both honors following the 2016 season. The first-year left-hander leads the SCAC in earned run average, allowing just seven earned runs in 57.0 innings of work for a miniscule ERA of 1.11 which is also seventh in all of Division III. He is undefeated this season at 6-0, has struck out 52 batters and allowed opponents just a .205 batting average, which also leads the conference. Herrera was a two-time SCAC Pitcher of the Week during the regular season, including in Week 7 when he fired eight innings of three-hit shutout baseball while striking out nine against then 16th-ranked Trinity. That performance also earned him NCBWA National Rookie of the Week.

Herrera is the second straight Centenary hurler – following current teammate Preston Ludwick who won the award in 2021 – and fourth overall to take the league's highest pitching honor. He is also just the fourth freshman to win the award since the SCAC came into being in 1991. He joins previous first-year winners Gary Cantrell of Oglethorpe (1992), Will Steinmann of Southwestern (1996) and Nathan Malinovsky of Texas Lutheran (2016).  

In earning Pitcher-of-the-Year honors, Herrera received four votes from the coaches. Sophomore right-hander Joseph Chavana picked up three votes while junior right-hander Joe Burch of Texas Lutheran received the remaining first-place vote.

Herrera earned six first-place votes in the Freshman-of-the-Year balloting. First-year outfielder Christian Melillo of Southwestern and first-year second baseman Will Vogt of Schreiner University split the remaining two first-place votes.

In his 24th‐year at the helm of the Trinity program, head coach Tim Scannell has led the Tigers to a 29‐8 overall mark (19-2 in conference play) and the current No. 12 ranking according to D3baseball.com and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. Trinity also sits atop the NCAA Division III West Region rankings. The program's winningest baseball coach, Scannell has amassed a career record of 737-277 (heading into this weekend's SCAC tournament) since taking over as head coach in 1999, including 320 conference wins – the second-most conference wins in any sport in SCAC history. He is ranked in the top-10 among active NCAA Division III coaches by winning percentage at .729. This marks the record 11th time in his career he has earned SCAC Coach of the Year honors, having previously been recognized in 1999, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2018. Following the team's national championship run in 2016, Coach Scannell was elected the National Coach of the Year by four organizations, including the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA)/NCAA Division III National Coach of the Year.

2022 SCAC Player-of-the-Year
Joe Jimenez, Texas Lutheran University, Junior, Shortstop, San Antonio, Texas

2022 SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Year
Tyler Herrera, Centenary College, First-Year, Pitcher, Spring, Texas

2022 SCAC Freshman-of-the-Year
Tyler Herrera, Centenary College, First-Year, Pitcher, Spring, Texas

2022 SCAC Coach-of-the-Year
Tim Scannell, Trinity University, 29-8 Overall Record (19-2 SCAC) / No. 12 in the nation

For the complete 2022 SCAC All-Conference baseball team, click here.