A pair of Texas
A&M-Corpus Christi baseball players were recognized recently
and the Southland Conference released its annual preseason
poll.
Stephen Flora
was named the South Texas Collegiate Player of the Year by the
Corpus Christi Hooks and will be recognized by club at the Fifth
Annual South Texas Winter Baseball Banquet on Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
at the
Solomon Ortiz Center. He has also been named to the Southland
Conference Preseason First-Team in baseball.
Last year's
Southland Conference Newcomer of the Year, Flora led the Islanders
and was second in the Southland Conference in hitting with a .380
average. He was named the collegebaseballinsider.com's National
Player of the Week in May after posting back-to-back 4-hit
performances against Central Arkansas and was a second-team all-SLC
selection. This past
December he was one of 209 players named to the Brooks Wallace
Award Watch list and was one of the five from the league
selected.
Sophomore Trey
Hernandez was also recognized by the Southland Conference being
named to the second team at first base. He finished his rookie
campaign with a .339 average and led the Islanders with 10 home
runs and 56 RBI. Hernandez had a .589 slugging percentage and .432
on-base percentage.
The league
office also announced the 2009 preseason baseball polls. Two-time
defending regular-season champion UTSA was picked to finish first
in both the Coaches Poll and the Sports Information Directors poll.
The Islanders were picked eighth, where they finished a season ago
and became the first No. 8 seed to win a game in the Southland
Conference Tournament.
The Islander
baseball team opens the 2009 season on Friday, February 20 with a
three-game set at New Mexico. The team opens its home schedule on
Tuesday, Feb. 24 with a non-conference game with UTSA at
Whataburger Field.
