Nine Gents Named To All-SCAC Team
Nine Centenary baseball players earned All-SCAC honors as the complete 2024 Team was announced on Friday.
CLEBURNE, Texas – Maxwell Mims of Southwestern University was voted the Offensive Player-of-the-Year and Jackson Teer of Trinity University was selected the league's Pitcher-of-the-Year for the second consecutive in exclusive 2024 all-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) voting by the conference's head coaches. Complete Release
In the same balloting, Centenary College's Alex Miller was named the conference's Freshman-of-the-Year, while Trinity head coach Tim Scannell earned SCAC Coach-of-the-Year honors.
Mims, a senior outfielder from Friendswood, Texas, is ranked in the top six in almost every offensive category in the conference season, which includes a league-leading 46 runs batted in headed into this weekend's tournament. Mims is also tied for second in home runs (seven), second in total bases (91), second in slugging percentage (.615), second in stolen bases (24), third in hits (57), fourth in triples (four), fourth in batting average (.385) and sixth in runs scored (37). Mims was a two-time SCAC Offensive Player-of-the-Week during the regular season, including two weeks ago when he batted .600 (9-for-15) with seven RBI, six runs scored, one home run and one triple in a three-game sweep of Schreiner. The senior, who recently became the 47th member of the SCAC 200-hit club, has had 18 multi-hit games this season and has hit safely in 10 of his last 12 games. The 2021 SCAC Freshman of the Year, Mims's selection as Offensive Player-of-the-Year marks the sixth time a Southwestern student-athlete has received the accolade and the first since Will Cates was so honored in 2015.
Mims received 12 first-place nods during the balloting process while senior catcher Gerardo Cardoza of Schreiner University picked up the four remaining votes.
Teer, a junior right-hander from San Antonio, Texas, is the current SCAC leader in earned run average (0.75), whip (0.76) and strikeouts per game (12.98) and is second in the league with seven wins. In 60.1 innings of work, he has allowed only five earned runs, striking out 87 (second in the SCAC) while allowing just a .167 batting average against (third in the SCAC). His current ERA is on pace to be lowest in SCAC single-season history and his strikeouts per nine innings the fourth lowest among pitchers who pitched at least one inning per game for each game played by their team during the season. An ABCA All-American a year ago, Teer was a four-time SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Week selection during the regular season, including in Week 4 when he posted a record-breaking performance for then No. 19 Trinity in a 9-1 win over No. 22 UW-Whitewater. He finished that game with 20 strikeouts over a complete-game victory, breaking the SCAC record for strikeouts in a game while tying a Trinity single-game record that was first set in 1965. The performance earned him a position on the D3baseball.com Team of the Week for the second consecutive week (fourth time in his career) and Honorable Mention National Pitcher-of-the-Week accolades from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers' Association (NCBWA). Teer's Pitcher-of-the-Year conference honor marks the 12th time a Trinity hurler has earned the league's most prestigious pitching award and just the third time in league history a player has earned Pitcher- of-the-Year honors in back-to-back seasons and the first since former Trinity Tiger Ben Klimesh in 2011 and 2012.
In earning Pitcher-of-the-Year honors, Teer was the consensus choice of the coaches and SIDs, receiving 14 first-place votes in the balloting. Sophomore left-hander Cody Myers of Centenary picked up the remaining two first-place votes.
Centenary's Miller, first-year first baseman from Cypress, Texas, either leads or is tied for the lead among all first-year players across several offensive categories, including batting average (.357 – eighth in the SCAC), hits (50 – seventh in the SCAC), runs (36 – seventh in the SCAC), doubles (eight – ninth in the SCAC), total bases (78 – fifth in the SCAC) and runs batted in (41 – second in the SCAC). He was the NCBWA National Rookie of the Month in February when he batted .462 (12-for-26) with nine runs, eight runs driven in, five walks, three homers, and two doubles in seven games. He logged four multi-hit games over that span, including a pair on a West Coast road swing where he batted .438 with two homers, two doubles, six runs scored and five runs driven in that earned him SCAC Hitter-of-the-Week honors. Miller's selection marked the first SCAC student-athlete to be recognized by the NCBWA for one of its national weekly awards since his teammate Aidan Reichek was named Rookie of the Week back in March of 2023.
Miller, who also earned Second Team all-SCAC honors, is the third consecutive Centenary player, and fifth all-time, to earn SCAC Freshman-of-the-Year honors, following his current teammates Reichek (2023) and Tyler Herrera (2022) in addition to current assistant coach Chris Zapata (2015) and Aaron Quintanilla (2014).
Miller earned eight first-place votes in the Freshman-of-the-Year balloting while first-year designated hitter Owen Stevenson of Southwestern and first-year outfielder Kaleb Woodward of Trinity picked up three votes each. First-year outfielder RayShawn Riley of Austin College received the remaining two first-place votes.
In his 26th‐year at the helm of the Trinity program, head coach Tim Scannell has led the Tigers to a 30‐10 overall mark (16-5 in conference play) and the current No. 9 ranking according to D3baseball.com and the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. Trinity also sits second in the current NCAA Division III West Region rankings. The program's winningest baseball coach, Scannell has amassed a career record of 836-316 (heading into this weekend's SCAC tournament) since taking over as head coach in 1999, including 352 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 .726. This marks the record 12th 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, 2018 and 2022. 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.
2024 SCAC Player-of-the-Year
Maxwell Mims, Southwestern University, Senior, Outfielder, Friendswood, Texas
2024 SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Year
Jackson Teer, Trinity University, Junior, Pitcher, San Antonio, Texas
2024 SCAC Freshman-of-the-Year
Alex Miller, Centenary College, First-Year, First Baseman, Cypress, Texas
2024 SCAC Coach-of-the-Year
Tim Scannell, Trinity University / 30-10 Overall Record (16-5 SCAC) / Regular Season Champs
For the complete 2024 SCAC All-Conference baseball team, click here.
